Stravito found that 74% of businesses were looking to expand marketing and consumer research budgets, based on analysis of 200 decision makers in large and medium-sized UK businesses in the last week of December 2020.

The research, carried out by polling company Censuswide, found that 82% of decision makers felt that data-driven insights were a top priority for them in 2021, and 72% wanted to boost knowledge and research sharing capabilities.

Overhauling customer engagement strategies in response to Covid-19 were also on the to-do list for 2021 for 76% of the companies examined.

Stravito said that 83% of the companies in the research felt that improving communication and relationships with customers would be critical to expanding their business this year.

Thor Olof Philogène, chief executive and co-founder of Stravito, said: “In this pandemic era, connecting to consumers on a ‘human level’ is more important than ever, and demonstrating empathy and understanding with customer concerns and needs is imperative.

“With workforces still distributed, and remote working here to stay for the foreseeable future, it is essential that research and business insights are made available to all departments and workers in a given company, so that there is no misalignment in knowledge or customer acquisition strategies.”