The findings are published in The Confidence Gap, the first in a four-part research series examining finance operations across UK manufacturing, financial services and technology sectors. The research identifies a structural gap between what organisations invest in and what they extract from their finance technology.
Adoption levels vary sharply by sector. Technology businesses reported the strongest utilisation, with a third of respondents using between 76% and 100% of their system’s available functionality. Manufacturing performed weakest: 60% of respondents in that sector use between 26% and 50% of available features, and two-thirds report using spreadsheets weekly as a regular part of their workflow. Among financial services firms, 41.1% report weekly spreadsheet use; among technology businesses, a third report daily usage.
The research also identified a gap between expectations of finance transformation and actual experience. More than half of respondents (52.2%) expected to realise meaningful value within six months of implementation. Only 42.4% achieved that. Almost one in five said it took ten to twelve months for the value of their investment to materialise fully.
Simon Kearsley, CEO of bluQube, said the challenge of transformation does not end at go-live. “The data shows that finance transformation doesn’t stop when a system goes live. Organisations have invested heavily in technology designed to improve visibility, support reporting and help finance teams work more effectively, but many are still struggling to unlock the full value of those investments.”
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