Market Intelligence is Well Established in the UK with Half Intending to Increase Their Intelligence Budgets
October 11, 2011. Companies in the United Kingdom (UK) are currently facing a difficult economic climate. Does this mean smaller budgets and fewer resources for market intelligence programs? The 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey suggests the opposite. Half of the UK companies surveyed intend to increase their market intelligence investments while only 2% plan to decrease their budgets.
Budgets and value
This is may be less of a surprise if one looks at the market intelligence approval rate for UK companies: a whopping 98% of respondents feel they have benefited from their market intelligence programs, and 79% think their past investments in market intelligence have paid off. These figures are higher than anywhere else in the world.
Source: 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey by GIA
*Click on image to enlarge
One explanation for these results may be the strong foothold that market intelligence has in the UK. As many as 85% of the survey respondents reported that their company has a systematic market intelligence program in place, which is clearly more than the global average. It appears that market intelligence has established itself in UK companies and is delivering positive results.
UK budgets appear to be very close to global averages. Including HR costs, UK companies spend about €1.4 million a year on average, on market intelligence. There is, however significant variation, as many companies have budgets well below €100,000 while others spend several millions.
Market Intelligence Set Up
Source: 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey by GIA
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UK companies have also organized and structured their market intelligence work like their global peers. Most companies are managing market intelligence either under marketing or under strategic planning, with neither dominating the other. Slightly less than half of the work goes into producing regular deliverables, the rest being consumed by ad-hoc projects.
Source: 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey by GIA
*Click on image to enlarge
Market Intelligence Networks
Despite similar budgets and structures, UK companies seem to have more staff with market intelligence as their primary jobs compared to companies globally. The average team size in the UK is 28 persons, with an average of 119 people providing additional contribution. These figures are clearly higher compared to companies globally, which can be interpreted as UK companies being less inclined to outsourcing their market intelligence activities.
Source: 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey by GIA
*Click on image to enlarge
Market intelligence teams in the UK feel they are able to fulfil as much as 82% of incoming requests, which is clearly higher than the global average. This may be a direct reflection of market intelligence teams having more staff than other companies globally.
As UK companies are bracing for economic crisis, they seem to be doing so with well-functioning and well-resourced market intelligence operations in place, and they don’t appear to have intention to scale them down significantly. This may be a good sign for the future of UK companies, who may well come out of the recession as winners.
For answers to how global companies run world class market intelligence functions, download the 2011 Global Market intelligence Survey white paper. Or request for a presentation of the country results from the 2011 Global Market intelligence Survey by a GIA consultant today.
About the UK results from the 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey
The survey sample was a fairly good representation of UK industry. Financial services were the largest group, accounting for nearly a quarter of the 55 companies represented in the sample. Manufacturing and industrial companies were also well represented, as were professional services companies. The sample also covered different size brackets rather well. The lowest bracket, revenue below €100 million, was close to equal in size to the highest bracket, revenue above €50 billion. About 30% of the companies in the sample had revenues between €1 billion and €5 billion.
Source: 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey by GIA
*Click on image to enlarge
Source: 2011 Global Market Intelligence Survey by GIA
*Click on image to enlarge
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