World Bank Data Shows Room for Improvement in Business Environments Across Key Firm Lifecycle Areas

A new analysis from the World Bank underscores that businesses worldwide continue to face significant challenges across all stages of the firm lifecycle, from entry and operation to taxation and insolvency. The findings, visualized through comparative scoring, reveal wide disparities among countries, highlighting both progress and persistent bottlenecks.

Measuring the Firm Lifecycle

The assessment breaks down the business environment into critical categories:

Business Entry

Business Location

Utility Services

Labor

Financial Services

International Trade

Taxation

Dispute Resolution

Market Competition

Business Insolvency

Each country is scored on a scale from 0 to 96.6, with higher scores indicating better performance in creating supportive and efficient conditions for firms.

Key Observations

1. Consistency of Gaps Across Areas
The data shows that no single area of the firm lifecycle is universally strong. Even countries with relatively high scores in one area (such as financial services or international trade) tend to fall behind in others, such as dispute resolution or insolvency frameworks.

2. High-Performing Countries
Countries such as the Slovak Republic, Rwanda, Georgia, and Greece emerge as reference points in the chart. While their scores differ by topic, their relatively stronger positions show targeted reforms can yield significant improvements.

3. Areas of Weakness

Business Insolvency appears as one of the weakest areas globally, with many countries clustering at lower scores.

Market Competition also shows significant variation, indicating challenges in ensuring fair and transparent business practices.

Utility Services and Labor present middle-range scores, suggesting ongoing inefficiencies that hinder productivity.

4. Balanced Reform is Critical
The visualization makes clear that focusing reforms on just one or two areas is insufficient. A holistic approach is necessary to build business readiness across the entire lifecycle.

Global Implications

A supportive business environment is central to sustainable growth, job creation, and investment. The uneven performance across regions signals that while some countries have made progress, global competitiveness and private sector resilience require further reforms.

The World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) initiative—successor to the Doing Business reports—aims to provide governments with detailed guidance on where reforms are most needed. By targeting weak points in taxation, insolvency, or dispute resolution, policymakers can help firms not only start and grow but also survive economic shocks.

Conclusion

The data confirms that businesses around the world face systemic barriers at every stage of their development. While some countries like Rwanda and Georgia demonstrate that reforms can drive rapid progress, the overall picture shows “room for improvement across all areas.” Achieving balanced reform across the firm lifecycle will be key to unlocking broader economic opportunity.