HubSpot study shows rising costs as key issue for Aussie firms

New research from HubSpot highlights the growing challenges faced by Australian businesses, with rising costs emerging as the foremost hurdle.

According to the study, 40% of companies identified high costs and expenses as their main issue, a sentiment echoed by a further 27% who noted that these financial pressures have intensified over the past year.

In addition to financial burdens, businesses are also grappling with data security and compliance issues (31%), slow growth (29%), and intense competition (28%). Struggles in generating actionable insights from data were reported by 28% of the respondents. Compounding these issues is the fact that the average Australian company needs to switch between 17 distinct applications just to manage customer interactions, creating inefficiencies and added complexity.

Dan Bognar, Vice President and Managing Director of JAPAC at HubSpot, emphasised the difficulties faced by businesses in the current economic climate. "Increasing costs have resulted in Australian businesses doing it tough," he stated. "More than ever, brands are competing to deliver a best-in-class customer experience. Teams interfacing directly with customers may be struggling to deeply understand and build meaningful relationships with them. These teams really need a unified customer platform to leverage right-time, right-channel connections that empower positive customer relationships."

Despite the evident need for technological advancement, the adoption of generative AI remains sluggish. According to the research, 20% of Australian businesses have not yet begun discussions about generative AI, and managing multiple channels and content types remains a significant challenge for 27% of companies, with 63% noting it has worsened or remained stagnant over the last year.

HubSpot has unveiled several new updates aimed at addressing these challenges. The latest enhancements to its platform include the introduction of Breeze Intelligence, a data enrichment solution that draws from more than 200 million profiles to improve customer records in its Smart CRM. Josh Ames, RevOps Manager at Phocas Software, shared his positive experience with the solution. "HubSpot's data enrichment feature quickly improved our data quality, leading to more effective campaigns and better alignment with our Ideal Customer Profile," Ames reported. "92% of companies in our CRM had at least one new enrichment property populated by the new feature. From my experience with other offerings, this is really good coverage."

Other updates include Breeze, an embedded AI feature designed to power the HubSpot customer platform, and Copilot, an AI companion intended to boost productivity. Four AI agents—Content Agent, Social Media Agent, Prospecting Agent, and Customer Agent—have also been introduced, each designed to streamline work processes. Additionally, HubSpot has rolled out 80 more features to enhance various functionalities, such as remixing content and predicting sales forecasts.

Updates to its Marketing Hub and Content Hub have also been made, providing marketers with tools to launch full campaigns, capture attention, generate leads, and measure impact. The Content Remix feature for video, for example, uses AI to convert a single video into multiple campaign assets, including clips, audio, and written content. Similarly, the new Marketing Analytics Suite consolidates metrics and reporting to improve campaign performance and efficiency.

Bognar expressed optimism about the potential of these new tools to alleviate current business challenges. "While organisations are starting to recognise the potential of AI in alleviating these challenges, there is plenty of room for CX improvement. By adopting generative AI into their day-to-day, businesses will quickly see an increase in customer connection, and a decrease in hard costs," he said.

HubSpot's latest platform updates come as the Australian economy grows at its slowest pace since the 1990s recession, putting additional pressure on companies to find innovative solutions to drive growth and maintain competitiveness.