Burton-Taylor Seeks to Grow Survey Sample for Industry Report

The survey, which Burton-Taylor has conducted annually since 2010, comprises six questions and takes a total of three minutes to complete, says founder and managing partner Douglas Taylor. The survey can be found at www.surveymonkey.com/s/B-T_Market_Data-News_Demand_2014-2015, and asks respondents─who can give their opinions anonymously or can leave their details to receive a free copy of the results after publication─to predict growth or decline in data spend based on user type, region, and product type for the remainder of 2014 and for full-year 2015.

In each category, respondents are asked to estimate growth within specific levels─up more than than 10 percent, up between five and 10 percent, up between two and five percent, up between zero and two percent, flat, or down by the same percentage tiers.

The user types cover portfolio managers, hedge funds, insurance, researchers, salespeople, traders, retail wealth managers, investment bankers, corporates, risk managers, middle- and back-office functions, and media. The regions to rank include the US, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, China, India, and Asia (excluding Japan), while product types cover equity, foreign exchange, fixed income and commodities desktops, valuation services, low-latency datafeeds, pricing and reference data services, news, research, risk management tools and order management systems.

Taylor says his aim this year is to increase the number of respondents to provide a larger sample size, and ultimately more accurate results, though he says the surveys of previous years has accurately─if perhaps a little conservatively─reflected actual industry growth trends. "I don't expect a big change in the quality of the data, but a larger sample size might alleviate some of that conservatism," Taylor says. Currently, the respondent profile is roughly 50 percent vendors, with the remainder split equally between end users, consultants and investors. "Our goal is to increase the numbers, but not necessarily change the respondent profile─though if anything, I would like to see more responses from users and investors," he says.

The survey will close on May 30, then Burton-Taylor will calculate the results before publishing the finished report free of charge in June.