Category: AR management

Homework – Gather Background Information: the Magic Quadrant & Tech Vendors [part 3]

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It is critical for AR to thoroughly research a particular Magic Quadrant and its history. Even AR staffs that have been working with Gartner on a MQ for a long time could benefit from doing a little digging into the background of the MQ in order to separate reality from faulty memory and myth.

 SageCircle Technique: 

Check on past Magic Quadrants – The first task is to obtain past versions of the Magic Quadrants. You can search Gartner’s research database, but frankly you still have to ask. While Gartner analysts published dozens of distinct Magic Quadrants in the traditional Research Note format every year, there are so many publishing platforms at Gartner (e.g., presentations and toolkits) that a MQ can show up in either as an original piece of research or a reprint of something published earlier. Because not all […]

Common Mistakes: the Magic Quadrant & Tech Vendors [part 2]

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For a variety of reasons, communications and IT vendor AR and executives make a number of mistakes concerning the Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) and how their companies should react to it. Decision makers at IT vendors need to take a step back and carefully consider the appropriate level of effort to put into “moving the dot.”

The first mistake is proceeding without understanding how your prospects and customers/clients value and use the MQ. You should be surveying your customer/clients and prospects about which research firms and reports they use.

The second mistake is assuming that you know what the underlying market-specific criteria and assumptions are for the MQ without talking to the appropriate analysts. Repositioning your “dot” on a Magic Quadrant doesn’t happen just because you have a great product or service. Often the most […]

Don’t Obsess, Don’t Ignore: the Magic Quadrant & Tech Vendors [part 1]

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Even with the blogosphere and other forms of social media, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant remains the IT market’s most highly visible piece of commentary. Because the Magic Quadrant impacts billions of dollars of corporate IT purchases, some IT vendor executives put too much emphasis on “moving the dot” which drains resources from the overall AR plan. Other vendors decide to ignore Magic Quadrants, missing an opportunity to leverage an effective marketing channel. Neither approach is 100% appropriate. In this post, we provide background on the Magic Quadrant and suggest that vendors take a middle approach between obsession and indifference.*

It is not uncommon for a SageCircle strategist to hear the following comment from an analyst relations (AR) manager: “Our execs – or even board of directors – have made improving our position on the Magic Quadrant THE (not ‘a’) goal for AR.” While ignoring the Magic Quadrant (MQ) can be perilous to a vendor’s top line, too much emphasis on a MQ can drain scarce AR resources from influencing all the analysts covering your particular market. The downside is that AR won’t be able to develop counterbalancing relationships with analysts in other firms, leaving the vendor dangerously reliant on Gartner and the MQ for positive analyst coverage.

We think it’s time that vendors take […]

THE TOP 5 Common Mistakes that Analyst Relations Programs Make

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5.  Vendors approach analysts with an undifferentiated message and lack of thought in their vision and strategy.

Downside – why should an analyst pay any attention to a boring, me too vendor, especially if the market is crowded and fragmented?

4.  Vendors use the same approach used for all analysts and all firms. Some firms have very bureaucratic briefing request procedures while others permit vendors and PR firms to call the analysts directly. Market researchers need numbers while advisory analysts provide customer success stories. Some analysts are very structured in the information they want and the briefing structure while other analysts even at the same firm are very informal.

Downside – analysts are narcissistic prima donnas who want to do things their way. Vendors who ignore basic differences between analysts and firms run the risk of irritating the analysts, not providing needed information and wasting the analysts’ time.

3.  Vendors provide the wrong type of information, not supporting the methods the analysts use to […]

The value to team collaboration – The ROI of an Analyst Relationship Management System [part four]

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icon-tools.jpgThis is the fourth in a series of posts that will explore the resources required and the advantages gained in using a formal analyst relationship management (ARM) system.  In this post we investigate how these systems can enhance collaboration.  Other posts will explore metrics and look at the values that can be obtained.  Your comments are encouraged.

It is 11 PM, do you know where your analyst is?

AR teams should know the perception of analysts long before the curfew of a Magic Quadrant.  Getting blindsided by a presentation, or knowing you have been dropped from a short list is never fun.  There are many ways to determine current analyst perception – but one not to be overlooked is simple team collaboration.  This becomes especially true with larger AR teams, or those that are organizationally or geographically distributed.

Tracking your AR activities and the perceptions that analysts have about your company is not an individual effort, but requires teamwork.  Methods that promote easy sharing of […]

What to do when analyst firms lays off analysts

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SageCircle has learned that IDC has initiated a round of analyst layoffs. At this time the exact number of staff and coverage is not known. AR teams need to hope for the best for their favorite IDC analysts, but plan for the worst.

Of course, layoffs impact real people with families and obligations. Often AR people are genuinely friendly with the analysts they work with and this sort of news can be a shock. Unfortunately for AR professionals, analyst firm layoffs also raise important issues that need to be addressed ASAP no matter how much sympathy they feel for the analysts caught in the layoffs.

The stark reality is that an analyst firm will not admit that […]

Steps for AR teams for starting with analyst blogs

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Welcome members of Forrester’s AR Council. Here are those steps A through F that I rattled off at the beinging of the panel. I also put in links to directories of analysts blogs and Don Bulmer’s blog. If the session ran out before we got to your question or you want more depth, leave your question as a comment and I’ll answer it.

In case you’re wondering what this is post is about, today SageCircle’s Carter Lusher was a member of the “Analyst Relations 2.0” panel at the Forrester Analyst Relations Council (ARC) meeting, which was co-located with Forrester’s IT Forum. The focus of the discussion was on analyst blogs and how AR teams need to think about them. Other members of the panel included analysts  Jonathan Eunice from Illuminata and Dana Gardner from Interarbor Solutions. Besides Carter on the AR services side was KCG’s Bill Hopkins (Tekrati’s Barbara French could not make the meeting so Bill took her place). The whole circus was moderated by Forrester VP Laura Ramos. The panel and audience discussion was quite lively, fun, and raised a number of issues.

 One of the requests by panel organizer Trisha Mirel was that we give the AR managers in attendance a list of practical action items to start incorporating analyst blogs into how they work. Obviously, this is something SageCircle has covered on a number of occasions (see our series of posts on social media). The more important recommendation is that interacting with analysts via their blogs should be part of an overall social media plan incorporated into the strategic AR plan. Getting started is quite simple with a few steps that go from A to F: ask… begin… conduct… develop… educate… forward…

 SageCircle Technique:

  • A = Ask your top analysts about their current or planned blogs, either under personal or firm brands
    A = Ask you customers about where they go for information and advice for product decisions
  • B = Begin to add analyst blogs to your overall AR plan, especially the […]

Getting value out requires putting effort in – The ROI of an Analyst Relationship Management System [part three]

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icon-tools.jpgThis is the third in a series of posts that will explore the resources required and the advantages gained in using a formal analyst relationship management (ARM) system.  In this post we review some best practices in using a system.  Other posts will explore metrics and look at the values that can be obtained.  Your comments are encouraged. 

Data entry needs

A good ARM will allow you to append interaction information to each analyst record.  This information can include personal entries about analyst perception, but most significantly it can be the corporate memory of analyst interactions.  By recording the date, type, and results of each interaction with each analyst you build a history that is available to the entire AR staff as well as new members. 

We have heard comments from AR managers who believe that data entry into any ARM takes too much effort and the value is not worth the work involved.*  This is a short sighted view for several reasons.

  • Generating metrics – SageCircle is a strong believer in metrics. If you don’t record your activities and […]