Businesses across the globe need to stay focused on strategies for cost management, streamlining and greater operating flexibility, Regus said. Global economic growth is progressing steadily, but full recovery will not be reliably under way until December 2010, the latest edition of the bi-annual Regus BusinessTracker survey said.

The survey’s 15,000 respondents reported a higher percentage of businesses seeing revenue and profit growth than were experiencing decline. However, respondents, who were asked “When do you expect economic recovery and growth to be advancing strongly and reliably in your country?” have now shifted their expectation of the full momentum of economic recovery back five months, from July to December.

“The key findings of this worldwide survey emphasize that the business community needs to retain an element of caution in their optimism. The study revealed net growth globally, with 12% more firms reporting a rise in revenues rather than a decline, and 8% more companies experiencing an increase in profits rather than a reduction,” the firm said.