Category: 1. Identify – AR research

Identify is the research stage of the IDEAL process model. It’s the stage where we situate the different analyst firms in our market, understand what our goals are, make an inventory of our past interactions with analysts and prioritize the analysts.

IT managers, it’s never, ever only about the upper right dot when it comes to Forrester Waves or Gartner Magic Quadrants

Posted on by

icon-phone-headset.jpgOne of the things that drives vendors – and even some Gartner and Forrester analysts – crazy is when an IT buyer zeros in on the vendors in the upper right hand corner of a Forrester Wave or Magic Quadrant to the exclusion of all other vendors. It is human nature to go for those who are perceived as tops in their market. Alas, that is not how these highly visible research graphics should be used. Rather IT managers should be looking to align their […]

Man bites dog — IDC licenses reprint of Outsell report in order to tout itself

Posted on by

logo-outsell.jpgIn what is for me an amusing twist how things normally work, here is an analyst firm getting a reprint of another analyst firm’s report in order to promote itself. In this case, it’s IDC that got the reprint of an Outsell report “IDC Grows Vertically Through Insights Product Line” to put on its website for marketing purposes. It is a pretty straight forward market research piece IDC, mainly facts with some analysis. You can get a copy by

[…]

How to break analysts out of auto-pilot inquiry responses

Posted on by

icon-phone-headset.jpgAnalysts who cover really popular topics can answer the same question over-and-over to the point where they go on auto-pilot. This means delivering basically the same information and advice regardless of the client’s situation. This is especially true for end-user or IT manager inquiries. Back when I was a Gartner VP & Research Fellow covering CRM, I once counted up 300 inquiries in a short time all asking me to compare and contrast the same three leading vendors. My eyes would glaze over as soon as the appointment reminder popped up for yet the next inquiry on the three amigos. So how do you ensure that the analyst is not on auto-pilot? Provide background on your situation and ask drill down questions. […]

Gartner’s Spring Symposium is a fine opportunity for vendors competing on emerging technologies and trends

Posted on by

logo-gartner-spring-symposium.jpgHmm, it’s early January, what to do? I know! For AR teams, it’s time for the big push to ensure the proper visibility at Gartner’s Spring Symposium. This is especially true for vendors that truly compete on hot tech, R&D and being on the leading edge. Spring Symposium has turned from deadly boring into an interesting opportunity to get visibility and recognition. Unfortunately, many vendors that should be mentioned at the “emerging trends” Symposium won’t be. Why? Most vendors are so focused on briefing analysts on today’s products or services that they do not get around to briefing the analysts on their work on emerging technologies and trends. There is still time to raise one’s profile, but the window is quickly closing. […]

Listening to analyst podcasts is free and easy

Posted on by

icon-microphone-reduced-v-2.jpgIf you have not started listening to analyst podcasts I highly recommend that you consider doing so. Podcasts are a great way to get information when stuck in the daily commute, working out on the treadmill, shopping at the grocery store, hanging out at the airport and so on.  If you have an Apple iPod, the iTunes Music Store makes it very easy to subscribe to any number of free analyst, technology, business publication, and competitor podcasts.  But you don’t need an iPod.  Most podcasts work with any MP3 player or can simply be played on your laptop.
 
Podcasts are useful for many communities: CIOs, IT buyers, vendor AR, product managers, reporters and others. […]

Spotlight on… Gartner’s Carl Claunch – Doing the hard work and delivering client service

Posted on by

photo-gartner-carl-claunch.jpgOne of my favorite sayings is “It’s good to be good, but it’s better to be lucky” and we were definitely lucky in early 2004 when Gartner appointed VP and Distinguished Analyst Carl Claunch as one of the two Lead Analysts for the company Dave and Carter worked at.
 
Up to that point, many of the major companies had great difficulty in getting Gartnerians to see the big picture about the entire company. We had the classic “blind men and the elephant” problem in that an analyst’s primary research coverage defined how they saw the company as a whole. […]

Interesting mix of analyst videos on YouTube

Posted on by

While browsing around YouTube this afternoon, I came across an interesting mix of analyst videos. Everything from firm level experiment like the Forrester Research channel (left) and the IDC eXchange channel to one-off videos by many other firms and individuals. I thought that Redmonk had a regular show on YouTube, but I did not find[…]

What am I missing? Why would a vendor brief a competitive intelligence firm?

Posted on by

While an AR director, each time I received a call from a competitive intelligence (CI) firm analyst requesting information, I would politely decline. When asked why I had declined, I would respond “Why would I give you information that you will turn around and give to my competitors?” This CI types often tried to persuade me by suggesting that I did not want them to have out-of-date information because that could cause them to inaccurately inform their clients. “Hmm,” I would answer, “wouldn’t it be better for my company if you were giving my competitors and their sales representatives inaccurate information so they would be less effective in stealing sales from us?”
  […]