Spanish companies face 2026 in a context marked by pressure on margins, more complex purchasing decisions and an increasingly autonomous customer, which poses new challenges for business growth. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and the INE, more than 99% of Spanish companies are SMEs, many of them with small teams and highly concentrated functions, which directly conditions their capacity for business growth. In this scenario, the main brake on business growth is not so much the lack of opportunities as the difficulty in efficiently coordinating the internal processes that sustain the relationship with the client and allow the business to scale.
Fragmented view of business growth
This is shown by a new HubSpot analysis, based on 800 real advisory calls with companies in Spain, in which managers from different areas directly explain the challenges that condition their business growth and their ability to grow sustainably.
Unlike studies based on surveys, this report called “Marketing and sales in Spain: What is holding back growth and how to solve it in 2026”, is built from real conversations between companies and advisory teams, which allows us to identify recurring patterns in the daily management of the business and the barriers to business growth. The data shows that challenges linked to customer acquisition and commercial activity appear recurrently, but only in 4 out of 10 conversations are they analyzed together, reflecting a fragmented view of business growth within many organizations.
The analysis identifies a common pattern in a large number of companies: excessively manual processes, tools that do not integrate with each other and limited visibility of the entire customer journey, a situation that appears in 70% of the conversations analyzed and that clearly limits business growth.
Furthermore, in 80% of cases, problems are detected in the transfer of information between the teams that generate opportunities and those that manage them commercially, while in 63% the disconnection between the systems used is mentioned. This combination makes decision-making difficult, slows market response, and reduces the operational efficiency needed to drive business growth.
More than a lack of specific coordination, the problem lies in work models that are not designed to scale, where the absence of shared data and common indicators prevents working with a unified vision of the business and business growth.
Small teams with specific functions
This type of friction has a particularly relevant impact on the Spanish business fabric, characterized by a high presence of small and medium-sized companies, with small teams and highly concentrated functions. In this environment, any internal inefficiency quickly translates into loss of time, opportunities and resources, directly affecting business growth, just at a time when the market demands greater agility and precision.
At the same time, the client advances quickly in their decision process, relying on digital information, comparisons and new technologies. While market behavior evolves, many organizations maintain fragmented internal structures that make it difficult to offer coherent and agile responses throughout the entire customer relationship process, thus slowing business growth.
Overly manual processes, tools that don’t integrate with each other, and limited visibility into the entire customer journey
“The beginning of the year sets the pace for the entire year. Companies that use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate internal friction gain speed and ability to adapt; those that do not spend the year reacting,” says Claudia Brunetti, Head of Corporate Sales at HubSpot.
In this context, the first 90 days of the year are consolidated as a key opportunity to review processes, integrate teams and lay the foundations for more efficient and sustainable business growth.
