The report, Insights 2020 – Driving Customer-Centric Growth, revealed that 56% of UK businesses have the critical insights capabilities needed to drive customer-centric growth – higher than the global average of 49%. Despite this, only 37% of UK businesses achieve a ‘customer obsession’ level of customer focus, which has been identified as the factor that makes the biggest difference to customer-centricity. It also found that just 33% of UK businesses reported having a ‘strong brand purpose’, compared with 49% of businesses worldwide.

The Insights2020 study by Millward Brown Vermeer, in partnership with the Market Research Society (MRS) in the UK, as well as The Advertising Research Foundation, ESOMAR, LinkedIn, Kantar and Korn Ferry, gathered the views of 340 senior marketing and insights leaders via qualitative interviews, and over 10,000 practitioners in 60 markets via a quantitative survey.

“Insights and analytics (I&A) is evolving from a function that answers specific marketing questions to being a valued co-pilot for the whole organisation to use in decision-making,” said Jane Frost, CEO of the MRS.

“The UK’s I&A teams are in a good position to maximise their impact and take a more leading role. They have a solid sense of the business, the analytical skills to make sense of data and the ability to translate it into actions and recommendations, bringing it to life in a way that compels people to do things differently.”

Amanda Phillips, Millward Brown’s head of UK marketing, added: “We know more about our customers than we ever have – where they shop, how they dress, why they smile at an ad and pass it on to their best friend.

“It’s a privilege that customers open a door into their world this way. The winning companies of tomorrow instinctively get this and so they obsess about how they can change themselves for the better.”