As a trading group within the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Met Office has up to now enjoyed a quasi-monopolistic position in weather services. The majority of its funding comes from the UK Government for the provision of a public weather service as well as for services to the MoD. But it also sells data to the private sector where it is coming under increasing competitive pressure from some very large commercial weather businesses.

daVinci Ventures was engaged to carry out an analysis of the competition for the Met Office to help inform its business strategy. The work looked at the competitive landscape and evaluated competitor and counter-competitor strategies. To carry out the analysis, the daVinci Ventures team devised a toolkit which the Met Office can use for ongoing monitoring and assessment of its competitive position. The tools helped the organisation rationalise the wealth of competitive information that it gathers across its broad range of industry sectors and devise simple metrics to help it stay one step ahead of the competition.