
Business Optimism Index for Q3 2025 declines, but sub-indices indicate resilience in the domestic economy
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 23: Dun & Bradstreet, a global leader in business decisioning data and analytics, released the Business Optimism Index (BOI) for Q3 2025, which declined to 117--marking a 2.3% decline over the previous quarter. The modest decline was driven by a fall in optimism in the large and the medium sized firms, while small firms showed resilience. The moderation in sentiment stems largely from global economic uncertainty, prompting businesses to take a measured approach. However, the domestic outlook remains strong, supported by improving macroeconomic conditions. A marginal decline in selling volume q-o-q suggests businesses are skeptic about evolving demand conditions.
The decline may reflect a dip in optimism around export orders, which had risen sharply in the previous quarter due to frontloading ahead of anticipated tariff announcements. In contrast, sentiment around domestic orders remained strong. The decline in optimism regarding selling prices likely reflects the subdued inflationary pressures in the economy. Overall, the survey indicates that firms are navigating the current landscape with measured confidence, balancing global risks with robust domestic opportunities. The Dun & Bradstreet Business Optimism Index, which has been tracking the changing business sentiment of India Inc. since 2002, continues to serve as a reliable leading indicator of India's economic growth, maintaining a strong correlation of approximately 80% with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Arun Singh, Global Chief Economist, Dun & Bradstreet, said, "While the Q3 2025 decline in the Dun & Bradstreet Business Optimism Index reflects a degree of caution among larger firms, the underlying resilience of the domestic economy stands out. Strong consumption fundamentals, rising investment activity, and targeted policy are lending support to business confidence, particularly among small businesses. The uptick in optimism around the domestic macroeconomic environment, despite global headwinds, signals trust in India's domestic growth momentum. As trade policy uncertainty clouds global demand, businesses are looking inward, with over half prioritizing the domestic market for future growth. Going forward, the recently signed India-UK Free Trade Agreement is expected to open new avenues for market access, improving trade through supply chain diversification. These developments are likely to boost business sentiment by enhancing export opportunities and driving innovation. Together, stronger external competitiveness and domestic market strength can sustain optimism and help Indian businesses navigate global volatility with greater confidence."
Key findings from the Q3 2025 survey
* The optimism for sales volume decreased by 1 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The food, beverages, metals, and transportation sectors are the most optimistic, while construction and information & communication sectors show lower optimism.
* The optimism for domestic orders rose by 3 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The electricals, electronics, mining, textiles and leather sectors remain the most optimistic, while financial and insurance activities and automotive sectors report the lowest optimism.
* The optimism for export orders fell by 1 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. Electronics, metals, textile and leather sectors lead optimism, while financial and insurance activities and automotive sectors remain least optimistic.
* The optimism for selling prices fell by 11 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The metals, hospitality, and food and beverages sectors show the highest optimism, while electronics and automotive sectors report lower confidence.
* The optimism for net profit fell by 4 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The financial and insurance, construction, and hospitality sectors are the most optimistic, while electronics, automotive, and capital goods sectors show lower optimism.
* The optimism for the global macroeconomic environment fell by 5 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The chemicals sector, along with utilities and professional and administrative services, remain most optimistic, while automotive and hospitality sectors show lower confidence.
* The optimism for employment fell by 15 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The hospitality, food & beverages, and textiles sectors exhibit high optimism, while automotive, transportation, and capital goods sectors show lower optimism.
* The optimism for the domestic macroeconomic environment increased by 8 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The information & communication, financial services, wholesale & retail trade, and transportation sectors show the highest confidence, while hospitality and capital goods sectors are least optimistic.
* The optimism for input costs fell by 1 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. The metals, food and beverages sectors show higher optimism, while information & communication and financial services sectors report lower optimism.
* The optimism for inventory levels saw an increase of 10 percentage points in Q3 2025 compared to the previous quarter Q2 2025. Mining and automotive sectors are the most optimistic, while metals and food and beverages sectors report the lowest optimism.
Notes to Editors
The Dun & Bradstreet Business Optimism Index (BOI) is a quarterly survey-based index designed to measure the pulse of the Indian business community and has served as a reliable indicator of the economy. Dun & Bradstreet surveys respondents (senior management) pan India across the Manufacturing and Services sectors, covering businesses of varying scale (large, medium and small) to calculate the BOI. Respondents are asked about their expectations (in terms of increase, decrease, or no change) regarding their company's performance (Ten BOI Parameters) in the ensuing quarter over the same quarter in the previous year.
About Dun & Bradstreet:
Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, enables companies around the world to improve their business performance. Dun & Bradstreet's Data Cloud fuels solutions and delivers insights that empower customers to accelerate revenue, lower cost, mitigate risk and transform their businesses. Since 1841, companies of every size have relied on Dun & Bradstreet to help them manage risk and reveal opportunity. For more information on Dun & Bradstreet, please visit www.dnb.com.
Dun & Bradstreet Information Services India Private Limited is headquartered in Mumbai and provides clients with data-driven products and technology-driven platforms to help them take faster and more accurate decisions in domains of finance, risk, compliance, information technology and marketing. Working towards Government of India's vision of creating an Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) by supporting the Make in India initiative, Dun & Bradstreet India has a special focus on helping entrepreneurs enhance their visibility, increase their credibility, expand access to global markets, and identify potential customers & suppliers, while managing risk and opportunity.
India is also the home to Dun & Bradstreet Technology & Corporate Services LLP, which is the Global Capabilities Center (GCC) of Dun & Bradstreet supporting global technology delivery using cutting-edge technology. Located at Hyderabad, the GCC has a highly skilled workforce of over 500 employees, and focuses on enhanced productivity, economies of scale, consistent delivery processes and lower operating expenses.
Visit www.dnb.co.in for more information.
Click here for all Dun & Bradstreet India press releases.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Mint
19 hours ago
- Mint
Indian family businesses: Governance begins at home
A recent working paper from the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) ( reaffirms the outsized role that family business groups play in shaping India Inc. It found that even as overall market concentration in India has declined, the top 25 family business groups still accounted for 11-15% of the country's GDP in 2020. Regulatory measures like the Companies Act of 2013 and the Companies (Restriction on Number of Layers) Rules, 2017, were designed to curb excessive complexity. Yet, while these rules aim to check concentration, they overlook a more critical issue: governance. As the paper notes, family business groups, regardless of size, often share a common design principle: intricate 'interconnected governance structures" that consolidate control through concentrated ownership. These structures may make business continuity easier in the short run, but unless carefully stewarded, they risk entrenching poor decision-making, succession disputes and opaque accountability. Also Read: Lodha vs Lodha: Why family names as brand names are always tough to disentangle Why does this matter today? Because Indian family businesses are navigating multiple transitions—generational, structural and financial. Many are preparing for initial public offers, courting private equity or exploring succession. Regulatory scrutiny around related-party transactions has increased. Next-generation members are demanding clearer roles, merit-based advancement and purpose beyond profit. Amid this churn, families are rushing to adopt governance tools, hoping these will future-proof the business. However, governance in promoter-driven companies and family businesses is not one-size-fits-all. Family firms face unique internal agency problems quite different from the classic principal–agent conflict, where managers pursue their own interests at shareholders' expense. In family firms, founders may act out of parental altruism, favouring children even when it harms the business. Siblings and cousins may engage in family opportunism, extracting private benefits or hoarding power. The effectiveness of governance tools hinges on understanding these conflicts and the firm's lifecycle stage. Also Read: The TVS Group's nuclear family pact is path-breaking Indian family businesses urgently need to understand this. Governance failure in family firms is rarely because of missing rules. More often, it is due to unresolved relationships. Early-stage family firms often run on trust, charisma and shared ambition. But as the business scales and the founder ages, these invisible levers weaken. Younger members want autonomy. Non-family professionals want clarity. Ownership begins to fragment. At this point, informal trust must evolve into formal governance—forums for dialogue, decision-making norms and dispute resolution mechanisms. And later, as ownership dilutes and family involvement reduces, the business must transition again—towards institutional governance with independent oversight, performance accountability and delegated authority. But here's the catch: Governance mechanisms are not interchangeable. A board cannot fix a sibling rivalry. A constitution cannot resolve a lack of emotional readiness. A 2017 study by Aaken, Rost and Siedl ( rightly warned against the blunt import of governance tools without an assessment of their fit. Also Read: The Godrej split holds valuable lessons for family businesses So what does good governance look like in this moment of flux? It begins with a sense of shared purpose, which precedes structure. Why does the family want to stay in business together? What values do they share? What trade-offs are they willing to make—say between profit and legacy? Without alignment on these vital questions, governance tools won't work. Governance also requires both management and ownership competence. Being a good owner is a learnt skill. Yet, in India, successors are often thrust into leadership without adequate preparation. Families must invest in the next generation's development, not only through MBA degrees, but through lived exposure to decision-making, conflict and ambiguity. Equally essential is emotional maturity. Governance in family firms is fundamentally about managing multiple loyalties—to the business, to the family and to oneself. It means having hard conversations early and learning to let go with grace. This cannot be outsourced to advisors. It must be lived and led from within. Good governance is also adaptive. What a founder-led business needs is very different from what a sibling partnership or a cousin consortium requires. Over-governing a young tightly knit firm can breed resentment. Under-governing a sprawling third-generation group can spell disaster. Also Read: Raymond Group demerger: The hidden lesson for Indian family businesses Finally, families must resist the urge to conflate governance with professionalization. The two are not the same. A business may have a professional CEO, but without clarity on family expectations, unresolved succession plans or informal interference, chaos is likely to follow. As the IZA study reminds us, India's economy continues to be shaped disproportionately by family business groups. If India's family businesses are to remain not just enduring but enriching forces in the economy, governance must evolve from a box-ticking exercise to a deliberate, values-driven practice. The future of India Inc may well depend on what happens not just in boardrooms, but around family dining tables. These are the author's personal views. The author is professor of economics and policy and executive director, Centre for Family Business & Entrepreneurship at Bhavan's SPJIMR.


Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
Why is India Inc not investing as much as it can? UBS report points to one major reason
India Inc 's big reluctance to invest has largely to do with all this uncertainty surrounding global trade deals, a report by UBS Securities India has pointed out. The lack of clarity on international trade is a significant factor hindering long-term capital expenditure (capex) by Indian companies , news agency ANI reported citing UBS's findings. The report stressed that trade agreements are critical for fostering investment as these generally help reduce business uncertainty. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Technology Leadership PGDM CXO Product Management Public Policy Others Artificial Intelligence others Management Project Management healthcare Healthcare Digital Marketing MCA Finance MBA Design Thinking Cybersecurity Degree Data Analytics Data Science Data Science Operations Management Skills you'll gain: Duration: 12 Weeks MIT xPRO CERT-MIT XPRO Building AI Prod India Starts on undefined Get Details Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently voiced concern regarding the sluggish pace of corporate investment during a recent event in New Delhi. She highlighted that despite substantial capital initiatives from both the central and state governments, private sector investment has not kept up. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Relive the Bollywood 2025 moments that went viral Learn More Undo Sitharaman noted that the government has two primary tools to stimulate investment: public spending and attractive policy-making. However, the anticipated acceleration in private sector investment has not materialised, especially in the years following the pandemic and the resolution of the twin balance sheet problem in 2019. The Finance Minister pointed out that although corporate balance sheets are healthier today, funds that could be invested are instead being held passively. This stagnation raises concerns about why corporates are not utilising available resources to expand operations and enhance production capabilities. Live Events Private capex: A mixed picture Rajiv Memani, President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), however argued that private capital expenditure is indeed taking place across various sectors in India. Although he acknowledged a slowdown over the past six to eight months, Memani attributed this to external factors rather than structural deficiencies within the economy. The report indicated that private capital expenditure has seen a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% from FY21 to FY25E, driven by key sectors such as oil and gas, power, automobiles, and commodities. This growth trajectory suggests that while there are challenges, the foundations for private sector investment remain strong, UBS said. While concerns around trade uncertainty persist, some of the key indicators show that private capital expenditure continues to progress, albeit at a cautious pace. According to economists, the interplay between government efforts and corporate responses will be vital in determining how India's private investment landscape plays out.

The Wire
2 days ago
- The Wire
STL reports Q1 FY26 results; continued positive momentum in Revenue and Order Book
• YoY growth in Revenue and EBITDA of ~17% and ~94%, respectively • Order intake of INR 1,500 Cr in Q1 FY26 MUMBAI, India, July 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- STL (NSE: STLTECH), a leading optical and digital solutions company, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended 30 June, 2025. For the first quarter of FY26, the Company reported revenues of INR 1,019 Cr and EBITDA of INR 140 Cr, a growth of ~17% YoY and ~94% YoY, respectively. Amidst a dynamic tariff landscape, we remain focused on driving performance and profitability through product innovation and cost leadership. We continue strengthening relationships with our customers and driving sales in our key markets of US, Europe and India. This has been reflected in our strong open order book of INR 4,888 Cr. with order intake of INR 1,529 Cr this quarter alone. In Q1 FY26, Optical Networking Business reported an 18.6% revenue growth and 55.7% EBITDA growth as compared to Q1 FY25. We remained focussed on co-developing optical products for our customers meeting their end-to-end connectivity requirements. The attach rate for Optical Connectivity (OC) segment reached to ~23% for the quarter, following the launch in the US last year. STL achieved ~23% revenue this quarter from Enterprise and Data Centre segment. Recently, STL expanded its Data Centre portfolio to cater to the rising demand of AI-led Data Centres, which includes high-performance fibre and copper cabling solutions. These solutions offer high-capacity and low-latency for scalable, future-ready deployments for end-to-end data centre connectivity. STL Digital - Acquired 4 new customers in Q1, taking the total count to 30 global customers. STL Digital signed multi-million and multi-year contracts with 3 leading private healthcare services providers to provide Digital Marketing services and a multi-million deal with a global communications devices company for network modernisation. Some key highlights for Q1 FY26 Key wins - Signed a 3-year Long-Term Supply Agreement (LTSA) for Intelligently-Bonded Ribbon (IBR) cable with a leading European telecom operator and secured significant order inflow with a key US customer for high fibre count OFC solutions, marking a strong comeback after a year. Partnered with Swoop to upgrade ~1,000 homes in Western Australia with high-speed Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) connectivity. Innovation - STL becomes the first company globally to deploy Multi-Core Fiber (MCF) in both aerial and underground networks. STL, in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), achieved India's first Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) transmission over a 100 km, 4-core MCF network. Recently, STL with IIT Madras, conducted a test with MCF cable on 5 km live testbed. We are now leading global standards in MCF design and testing. Our patent count stands at 740 by the end of Q1 FY26. Recognition and Awards - STL was recognised by TEPC (Bharat Telecom 2025) in the category 'Telecom Products (Hardware & Software) – Large Enterprises' for driving global exports through Make-in-India innovation. Also received the ET Telecom Award for Impactful IoT Solution of the Year - Sensron (Fibre Optic Sensing). Sustainability - We achieved a major milestone in sustainable manufacturing for Maharashtra's first green hydrogen and green oxygen production facility for optical fibre. This will enable STL to become one of the world's first optical fibre manufacturers to deploy 100% green hydrogen in its production processes and support its goal to achieve Net Zero by 2030. "With our trusted global partnerships and continuous product innovation, we are well-positioned for long-term success. The recent expansion of our AI-led Data Centre portfolio and industry-first innovations like multi-core fibre are addressing the growing global demand for high-speed, secure, and scalable connectivity, said Ankit Agarwal, Managing Director, STL. "As we continue to co-create with customers and build next-gen optical networks, we remain committed to powering the digital backbone of tomorrow's world." Financial highlights (INR Cr) Financials** INR Cr Q1 FY26 Q1 FY25 Revenue 1,019 872 EBITDA 140 72 **All financials are from continued operations About STL - Sterlite Technologies Ltd: STL is a leading global optical and digital solutions company providing advanced offerings to build 5G, Rural, FTTx, Enterprise and Data Centre networks. Read more, Contact us, | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube (Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with PRNewswire and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.). PTI This is an auto-published feed from PTI with no editorial input from The Wire.