UK businesses are predicted to almost double their investment in analytics to nearly £25 billion by 2020, according to research OC&C Strategy Consultants.
Companies across the UK are currently spending £12 billion annually on advanced analytics, compared to £58 billion in the US. This spend is set to surge by 26% in the UK and 25% in the US over the next three years.
Of the sectors covered, the B2B industry was the biggest proponent of analytics, with 33% of B2B companies perceiving a positive impact, ahead of retail (26%), leisure (19%), and telecoms, media and technology (13%).
What are top-performing companies doing differently?
The report also uncovered that 70% of top-performing companies possess a large, centralised team dedicated to analytics, compared to 26% of the worst performers.
These findings further strengthen the perceived role of analytics in B2B, with research from last year revealing B2B marketers vastly outspend their B2C peers on marketing analytics.
However, separate research from Dun & Bradstreet found B2B data quality has declined since 2016, suggesting there is a data skills gap among marketers. This is backed by a recent MHR Analytics report, which revealed 70% of c-level executives struggled to effectively upskill employees in data analytics.
James Walker, partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants, said: “When it comes to investing in analytics to drive business results, the message from this research is: ‘go big, or go home.’ There is a clear relationship between spending more on analytics and outperforming your peers – the more you spend, the more superior your performance.
“Across industries, investment in analytics will increase in the near to medium future, stretching the gap between top and poor performers even wider.”
OC&C surveyed more than 300 c-suite executives across the US and UK, as well as conducting over 40 deep-dive interviews with a range of executives from seven industry sectors.
