What we do

Incorporated in 1999, Vanson Bourne is a specialist research-based IT marketing consultancy offering clients analysis and advice based on incisive and rigorous research into their market environment.  We've been delivering research-based marketing support for the IT and telecommunications community for many years.We have two service strands

• our range of OmniBoss services described on this website
• our MonoGraph service, which designs and delivers custom research for individual IT and telecommunications clients. 

Our experience encompasses researching both technology and business managers in all business sectors and geographies from Europe to Africa and from AsiaPac to the USA. Whatever our clients need we can handle; we’re equally comfortable with using quantitative (online, telephone, postal) and qualitative (depth executive interviews, focus groups) techniques to deliver the best solution.Vanson Bourne combines big company capability with small company responsiveness. 

The core competences of designing, managing and interpreting technology research reside in house, as does the online technology we increasingly use to gather and distribute market insight for our customers. We have strategic partnerships in sample & contact provision and telephone research & recruitment. These partnerships provide best of breed expertise to our customers at zero overhead.   

Who we are

The principals of Vanson Bourne are Kevin Withnall and Graham Opie.

Kevin Withnall:
Before co-founding Vanson Bourne in 1999, Kevin was for five years a Director at Spikes Cavell. At Spikes Cavell.  Kevin was responsible for the company’s research assignments for Hardware, Software and Services vendors. Prior to Spikes Cavell, Kevin was Marketing Director of Data Logic, a UK-based computing services company. His role at Data Logic involved directing the business planning process and undertaking a re-branding and positioning exercise. He joined Data Logic from BIS Strategic Decisions (now GIGA Information Group) where he was Managing Consultant providing market analysis and research to the IT industry. 

At BIS, Kevin was responsible for the running of the company’s custom consulting practice. Kevin was with BIS for seven years. In this time he concentrated on satellite and technology research. Before joining BIS, Kevin worked with IMR (Industrial Market Research) in London for four years where he developed his market research and analysis skills. Kevin is a graduate of Durham University.

Graham Opie:
Graham has sixteen years’ experience in researching technology markets in UK, mainland Europe and the USA.  Before co-founding Vanson Bourne in 1999, Graham spent almost seven years at Spikes Cavell. His most recent role was MD, before which he had spells as head of several divisions including Software, Network & Telecoms and Desktop. In these roles Graham was responsible for the company’s relationship with IT industry giants.  

During his career at Spikes Cavell, Graham was also Research Director, with responsibility for the design and delivery of custom market research projects. Prior to this Graham was Marketing Director of Benchmark Research.  Graham is a graduate of Sheffield University and a holds the diploma of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.