Research & Insight — Vol. I
Evidenceover opinion.
Three pillars of research. Each grounded in primary data, live engagements, and the numbers that move boards.
In this issue
- 01Marketing Maturity in 2024
- 02Management and UK 2030
- 03How Strategy Champions Win
Plate № 01
Original Research
01
January 2024 — 1,988 UK SMEs surveyed
Original Research
Marketing Maturity in 2024
More than half of UK SMEs are marketing in the dark. A landmark study of nearly 2,000 decision-makers exposing the planning gap that quietly suppresses growth across the mid-market.
54%
have no documented business plan
67%
have no marketing action plan
28%
generate enough leads to hit growth targets
27%
set clear objectives for marketing spend
Conducted with The Marketing Centre across 1,988 decision-makers, the study benchmarks SMEs against 12 facets of marketing maturity — from brand confidence and lead generation through to metrics, retention and profit.
The headline finding: strategy, not technology, is the binding constraint. Metrics and measurement is perceived as the single greatest marketing challenge, with automotive, agriculture and engineering carrying the highest risk to overall business health.
Plate № 02
Policy Research
02
February 2024 — Chartered Management Institute
Policy Research
Management and UK 2030
Bad management causes 56% of corporate failures. CMI's landmark report makes the case that management capability — not technology — is the binding constraint on UK productivity and growth.
56%
of corporate failures caused by bad management
£127bn
potential UK GDP uplift at German management levels
82%
of employees become managers with no formal training
840k
fewer skilled UK managers vs US demand levels
Drawing on the World Management Survey and analysis from The Productivity Institute, the report identifies firms in the 50th–90th productivity percentile as the true opportunity zone — established, internationally-traded businesses where better management would convert directly into national productivity gains.
It lays out five steps to a better-managed UK by 2030: upgrading public-sector management capability, using government as a persuader, protecting what already works (notably management apprenticeships), pulling policy and regulatory levers, and pursuing trade deals that pull UK firms into global supply chains.
Plate № 03
Benchmark Research
03
McKinsey & Company — Ten Tests of Strategy
Benchmark Research
How Strategy Champions Win
McKinsey's longitudinal assessment reveals a staggering collapse in large-firm strategic competence. What began as a rigorous discipline has quietly devolved into passive financial budgeting.
35%
passed 4+ tests in 2010
21%
pass the same threshold today
4 in 5
large strategies fail structural robustness
10
structural tests of strategic competence
Every few years, McKinsey & Company assesses large-scale corporate strategies against their Ten Tests of Strategy — a framework designed to separate genuine market-defining choice from the mere aggregation of departmental wish lists.
The longitudinal data is stark. In 2010, 35% of large-market executives reported that their corporate strategy could pass at least four of the ten structural tests. In recent global assessments, that figure has fallen to just 21%. Nearly four in five large-scale corporate strategies now fail basic tests of structural robustness, with enterprise strategy increasingly reduced to passive financial budgeting rather than active, market-shaping intent.
Research Methodology
We study organisations, not markets.
Live Cohort Analysis
Our primary data source is the organisations we work with directly. We track strategic outcome variables — revenue trajectory, retention, decision velocity — across multi-year engagement windows with explicit consent.
Structured Elicitation
We use cognitive-behavioural interview protocols and attitudinal mapping instruments developed in-house. These are designed to surface what leaders actually believe, not what they are prepared to say in a boardroom.
Cross-Case Synthesis
Insights are validated by triangulation across sectors. A pattern that holds in a £15M professional-services firm and a £200M manufacturing group is more likely to be structurally true than sector-specific.