By: Sarah Shamouelian
Knowing who, and what, to prioritize can be a difficult challenge for many AR teams, so AR veteran, and original SageCircle founder, Chris Germann has broken it down. If he had $100 to spend on analysts, where would it go?
His answer is rather unequivocal: 70% would go to Gartner without a second thought. The remaining 30% could be divided amongst companies like Forrester or IDC, but you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. Making a strong choice early on can be a game-changer for anybody, but the exception to this budget would be someone in a boutique vertical market; Gartner is almost entirely horizontal, so you would be better off dividing your funds between niche firms that can successfully serve your unique needs.
As far as assembling a team, Chris’s first hire would be an AR manager, quickly followed by a customer success team. Service providers would be the final addition, with the emphasis on a strong customer advocacy branch. This is vitally important and something Chris has witnessed firsthand in enterprise influencer marketing. Although AR hasn’t seen too many drastic changes over the last 20 years, things are changing now more than ever. Keeping transformative AR in mind should always be a priority.
To find out how SageCircle can transform your team’s results, book an exploratory session with our experienced team by contacting info@sagecircle.com.
Sarah Shamouelian joined SageCircle in January 2021 from the Analyst Observatory, where she led the Analyst Advocacy Study. She has developed significant partnerships with clients, investors and resellers at Informa, Oxford Economics and Bombora. Sarah has worked on transforming numerous start-ups and mature businesses, providing services in information technology, media, data, sales and marketing.
She has an MBA with Merit from the Alliance Business School at the University of Manchester.
This might work for Chris but it really needs to be nuanced and can actually be counterproductive in some situations. There are many reasons and situations where AR pros should invest into other firms, for instance IDC on market sizing, Forrester for customer experience, Constellation for digital transformation, HfS for Sourcing, CCS for mobile, etc.
Horses for courses, as we say –and it depends on your objectives.
See the IIAR> papers on scaling AR and on the AR compass.