A data and technology business serving the water sector needed to engage senior stakeholders across the UK water industry to understand how utilities were approaching operational and investment decisions ahead of a regulatory price review period.

What we established

We identified and engaged senior professionals across UK water utilities with responsibility for operational strategy, capital investment, and regulatory engagement, recruiting across a range of organisation sizes and ownership structures. The specialist nature of the sector required direct approaches to individuals rather than panel recruitment, given the limited size of the addressable expert community.

What changed

The business was able to develop a clearer picture of how its target customers were thinking about investment priorities and technology adoption in the context of the regulatory cycle, grounding its commercial and product strategy in the actual pressures and constraints facing the sector. The findings informed both the product roadmap and the approach to customer engagement.