Brexit Negotiations Drive Analytics Growth

As Brexit negotiations continue, analytics could be a big UK growth industry.

Despite what certain British politicians might claim, the future of the UK's involvement with the European union is far from certain. Article 50 might have been triggered, but negotiations continue, and you'd be hard pressed to nail down what exactly is set to happen over the next couple of years. Whether Britain does leave the EU, whether it does so with or without a deal, one thing seems certain: the analytics industry will grow regardless.

As more and more companies inside and outside the technology industry have begun to recognize the benefits of analytics, this field has experienced explosive growth and investment in recent years, and that trend seems set to continue. As SmallBusiness points out, recent reports from various organizations show that the more you invest in analytics and the more you make it a core component of your business, the greater benefits you see.

Although the UK currently lags behind the US in terms of analytics investment, it is catching up. In 2017, investment sits at £12 billion, or around $16 billion. By 2020, a year after Brexit negotiations are slated to be completed, analytics investment in the UK is expected to double to £24 billion ($32 billion).

This is mostly expected to come from businesses who already invest in analytics, with some 60 percent of both British and American companies currently making use of the technology, expected to increase their investment in it over the next few years.

This growth in UK analytics will be mirrored in the U.S. too, with investment here expected to reach the unprecedented height of $150 billion by that same year.

What's most impressive about these predictions though, is that by more measures, much of the UK's economy will be negatively affected by Brexit. Although some sectors have shown some growth, a large majority are forecasted to decline in the wake of decreased trade with the EU and a reduction in EU labor. It could well be that business leaders feel they'll need to discover new revenue streams in order to maintain their current income levels. With analytics' proven record of discovering trends within existing business models, it could well help alleviate some of the downturns that are expected to hit British businesses in the years to come.

There are even specific companies being set up to take advantage of this trend. BrexitAnalytics has brought together teams of people that are technologically and politically savvy, helping to leverage data analysis and political know-how to analyze and plan for, the impact that Brexit will have on British businesses.

On top of being useful, it would be rather poetic to see analytics help alleviate some of the associated problems with Brexit, since it was partly blamed for the leave vote being successful in the first place earlier this year.