View the full Brand Finance World's Most Valuable B2B Brands 2026 report here.
Head of Research
Brand Finance
For many B2B organisations, dedicated brand research has simply been out of reach. Cost barriers, methodologies ill-suited for complex B2B buying environments, and difficulty articulating financial contribution have limited uptake. In organisations where revenue metrics dominate decision-making, brand equity has struggled to secure equivalent attention or investment.
The result is a clear gap. B2B brands are making key decisions about positioning, investment, and growth without the sector-specific evidence they need to make them well.
Brand Finance’s expanding research programme is designed to address this imbalance. Our ambition is to make rigorous, sector-specific brand intelligence accessible to every B2B organisation, regardless of size or budget, and to do so at a level of industry granularity that generic brand tracking has not historically been able to provide.
At the heart of this work: in B2B, brand is not a by product of commercial success. It is a driver of it.
Understanding brand in B2B: How Brand Finance is building the world's most comprehensive view of brand equity across industries
Each year, Brand Finance conducts the world's largest study of brand value and brand strength, covering more than 6,000 brands, 41 countries, and 31 industry sectors. This global research programme combines proprietary market research with rigorous financial valuation methodology to produce an authoritative picture of how brand performs as a business asset, both globally and by sector.
Our Global Brand Equity Monitor (GBEM) surveys more than 175,000 respondents annually, capturing brand performance across the full funnel, from familiarity and consideration through to preference, price acceptance and advocacy. This data feeds directly into our Brand Strength Index (BSI) scores and brand valuations, giving organisations a robust, evidence-based view of where their brand stands relative to competitors and what is driving, or constraining, its commercial performance.
However, while essential, global coverage only tells part of the story. Brand does not work the same way in every industry. The drivers of brand strength in a consumer market differ fundamentally from those in a capital-intensive B2B environment, where purchase cycles are long, relationships are complex, and decision-making is multi-layered.
Deepening our understanding of B2B brand
Brand Finance has significantly expanded its sector-specific B2B research capabilities. Our objective is to develop a deep, empirically grounded understanding of how brand operates within each B2B sector we cover.
To date, we have conducted dedicated sector research across sectors including Chemicals, IT Services, Mining, Software, Asset Management, Design, Engineering and Advisory Services, and Energy. In each case, the analysis moves beyond top-line brand value rankings to examine the specific metrics and behavioural drivers that shape client choice, retention, pricing power, and long term loyalty.
In Engineering, our latest research indicates that drivers are fundamentally about capability signalling. Clients are selecting partners for complex, high-stakes projects where the cost of failure is substantial. Attracting best-in-class technical talent is critical as the most credible proxy available for delivery quality; you cannot fake a roster of exceptional engineers. Global recognition matters because it signals that others, in other markets, have already made the same bet and not regretted it. DE&A leadership matters because it reflects a firm's ability to bring diverse thinking to novel problems. These are all forms of pre-qualification. The brand's job in Engineering is to survive the shortlist.
In IT Services, similar traits, including global brand recognition and deep expertise are among the most critical drivers of consideration, but are complemented by relational factors. Customer service, Trusted partnership, and AI capability define consideration. This points to a sector in the middle of a significant transition where IT Decision makers are navigating a moment of profound technological change and looking for a partner that they can trust to guide them through it. AI expertise serves as a proxy for relevance – but only converts into consideration when paired with the relationship qualities that make a long-term partnership feel safe. In IT Services, innovation and trust must co-exist.
In Mining, the picture shifts. Instead, the single most important driver is not technical capability but pride of association: being a company people are proud to work for and partner with. This reflects the sector’s broader, complicated relationship with communities, environments, and governments. Strong leadership and trustworthiness follow the same logic. In Mining, brand consideration is shaped as much by character and conduct as it is by capability, a reflection of the sector’s significant reputational exposure.
In Chemicals, the emphasis is more operational. Genuine care for customers, smooth processes, low bureaucracy, on-time and predictable supply, are descriptions of what it feels like to do business with a supplier day-to-day. These attributes reflect the nature of procurement-led decision-making, relationship intensity, and distribution sensitivity in Chemicals. When production depends on inputs arriving on schedule, reliability is not a nice-to have. R&D and sustainability matter too, but they sit alongside the fundamentals of commercial execution.
Reviewed together, these patterns reveal a broader insight. In sectors such as Engineering and IT Services, brand consideration is driven largely by forward-looking signals – capability, expertise, innovation, and future relevance. In Mining and Chemicals, it is grounded in present-tense qualities – character, reliability, and behaviour.
These drivers reflect how risk is distributed in each sector. Strategic risk drives demand for signals of future capability, while operational and reputational risk prioritise trustworthy conduct.
Our original research goes into even more detail in understanding how different brands perform across category drivers. It shows where brands stand competitively and how to improve.
Expanding coverage: Real and synthetic research
Brand Finance is committed to extending this sector-specific research across every B2B category we cover, with the aim of building the most comprehensive view of B2B brand equity ever assembled.
To achieve this at scale, we are combining traditional primary research with advanced AI enabled technologies, including synthetic research methodologies, that allow us to model brand perceptions and behavioural drivers with greater speed and granularity than previously possible.
This is not a substitute for primary research – the voice of actual buyers and decision-makers remains the gold standard – but a powerful complement to it, enabling us to extend robust insight into markets and segments where traditional data collection has historically been difficult or costly to obtain.
The result is a research infrastructure that is broader, faster, and more nuanced than anything currently available, equipping brand leaders, investors, and management teams with the sector specific intelligence they need to make confident decisions about brand investment, positioning, and strategy.
