Manufacturing Tops the UK’s Most Data-driven Industries List, Research Reveals

Summary

March 1, 2021 - New research published by data-science consultancy Peak Indicators shows that UK manufacturers are outperforming other sectors in the economy in using data and analytics to inform decision making.
 
Peak Indicators' study, which was conducted by researchers at Opinium, found that the UK’s manufacturing sector had the most significant proportion of organizations actively using data to inform decisions, as well as the highest adoption rates of advanced analytics and AI to help interpret the data at their disposal:

• A fifth (21%) of UK manufacturers have succeeded in making data insight a core part of decision making processes, compared to 16%of the overall business population

• 14% of manufacturer have gone even further and are already backing up all of their decisions with data, almost three times more than that national average (5%)

• 15% of manufacturers said they had deployed predictive and prescriptive analytics across multiple processes. Across the whole business population this figure was 2%

Despite the high numbers of manufacturing organizations making progress, Peak Indicators’ research indicates that a significant portion of the industry has been left behind in the race to become more data-driven. 
 
Almost a third (30%) of manufacturers are still failing to collect or collate data systematically, while 38% currently make no use of analytics. Half of the manufacturers surveyed (54%) said they continue to rely exclusively on leaders’ intuition to inform most business decisions.
 
Kenneth Neilson, managing director at Peak Indicators, commented: “Large parts of the manufacturing sector have been transformed through industry 4.0 and smart factory investments, and many manufacturers are incorporating IoT technology into their operations to make even better decisions with real-time data. However, there is also a substantial data-divide opening up between smart factories and the laggards, who are at risk of getting left behind by more agile competitors.
 
“The good news is that most manufacturers can become data-rich environments relatively quickly, which is a vital first step to helping them maintain their edge and develop new sources of competitive advantage.”
 

Other sectors with large numbers of data-driven organizations

The construction, hospitality & leisure, business services and finance & accounting sectors also revealed significant concentrations of data-driven organizations in Peak Indicators’ study. Around a quarter of companies in each industry rely on data as a core component of most or all decision making processes.  
 

Data, analytics and data-driven decision making by industry

About Peak Indicators

Established in 2008, Peak Indicators has grown to become one of the UK’s leading data science and analytics organizations. The company combines best-in-breed technologies and an expert team to drive transformational results for hundreds of financial services, retail, consumer goods, public sector and telecommunications organizations. Peak’s customers include HSBC Bank, AstraZeneca, Legal & General, Nomura, Schneider Electric and GO Outdoors.