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This paper summarises the situation regarding the penetration of data warehouses and business intelligence systems in companies across a range of industries in the UK. Data warehouses are being implemented due to the business need for tools within companies today to analyse the increasing amounts of data being collected. The paper then presents a short case study describing an example of a successful implementation of a business intelligence solution that supports CRM in a major retailer. Points are emphasised via the use of results from a recent IBM‐sponsored qualitative study done in the UK.

Describes the research and findings of a project aimed at how UK companies use customer information in their marketing today. Today’s technologies allow companies to collect enormous volumes of data and manipulate it in many different ways to bring out otherwise unforeseen areas of knowledge. This can be vital for marketers trying to provide better service to the customer than their competition. But is it in general use? The research was carried out via an e‐mail questionnaire using a sample of companies to gain a broad view of marketing today, and was followed up with interviews of half the original sample and finally writing three case studies of diverse companies. Owing to the small sample size, no definitive answers can be given without further research, but the trend was towards implementation of customer relations management (CRM) practices and more take up of the Internet as a channel to market.

Is employee morale affecting customer satisfaction and therefore the bottom line? This paper describes a piece of exploratory research carried out in the business‐tobusiness (B2B) sector in the UK to determine whether employee satisfaction does ultimately affect profits. There is a great deal of literature that supports this argument. The results of the research, however, actually indicated an inverse relationship in one industry in particular. The focus industries were technology, processing and business banking. This correlates with a recent similar study in the retail industry. The results showed that morale can be very low, yet employees work hard in order to keep their customers loyal and to maximise company profits. This is despite fear of redundancy, high workloads and long hours.