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.
One of the most powerful tools that analyst relations teams have to convince their companies’ executives about the business value of AR is a case study on an impact that an industry analyst had on a specific deal. For example, when we published “SageNoteTM AR107 — Case Study: Rapid Response by AR saves a $35[…]
Over on Twitter, there is a conversation starting about the definition of “analyst.” This post is to provide a place to gather ideas and see if we can come to consensus. Please leave comments with your thoughts.
There is almost no barrier to entry for someone to call themselves an analyst. All one needs is an opinion, laptop, cell phone, blog/website and (maybe) a business card. There are no state certification boards, no professional associations and no university degrees.
For analyst relations (AR) and public relations (PR) professionals this is not a trivial issue as there are more and more demands on their […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
After we published Research consumer’s turn – How industry analysts can be better prepared for inquiries we received several suggestions about how we should give AR managers’ their turn. In this case, the AR managers wanted to give the analysts a few friendly tips to the analysts about how the analysts can come to briefings better prepared.
In private conversations, AR professionals are more than happy to critique the analysts’ level of preparedness for a briefing. However, the AR pros are loath to actually say something to the analyst for fear of hurting the relationship or courting retaliation. We think that these fears are unfounded as most analysts would appreciate reasonable suggestions for how they can improve what they do. AR pros can leave suggestions via comments to this post (anonymously if you like) or by sending SageCircle an e-mail (info [at] sagecircle dot com). We will aggregate e-mailed suggestions and add them to this post.
To get the ball rolling here are few ideas that should only take an analyst a few minutes to do immediately prior to a briefing:
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
Sometimes IT and telecommunications vendors express frustration at the very existence of IT advisory analysts and their influence with the technology buyers (aka end users or IT managers). Often the vendors accuse the IT buyers of being lazy or stupid because they use the analysts instead of doing the research themselves. Bloggers are equally amazed at why end users would spend money on analyst contracts when there is so much information available for free on the Internet.
The reality is that the advisory analysts provide valuable services to technology buyers and have earned the trust of those buyers over the years. When they don’t understand the true reasons why the advisory analysts are widely used, vendor executives will miss opportunities to invest in analyst relations efforts. This is also true for the sales force who need to understand the motivations for using the analysts, Training is critical for preparing sales reps to handle lucrative deals that are impacted by IT analysts.
There are a number of reasons why IT advisory analysts exist and […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
Major analyst firms like AMR Research, Gartner, IDC and Ovum are rightly criticized for being slow out the gate when it comes to addressing and using social media. The one major firm that has done the most to leverage the potential of social media is Forrester, but even Forrester has not been as aggressive as it could be. Here are some ways that major analysts firms should be involved with social media tools:
Research it
Social media should be a topic of research. We think this is quite obvious, but with the exception of Forrester none of the major firms have done any in-depth, systematic research on the topic. No doubt some of the firms will say that […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
Analyst Analyst launched today. It has an interesting premise – have the analyst ecosystem police the analysts. SageCircleSince 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue. sagecircle.com
SageCircle promotes the use of inquiry and we have offered suggestions on various topics for both Enterprise IT research consumers and Communications and IT vendors. In general, vendors spend far less time doing inquires than they should. This both decreases the business value they are receiving from the analyst contract and misses some important soft dollar benefits that are hard to achieve in other ways. Not getting value from the inquiry contract also contributes to the perception of some vendor executives that advisory analysts like Gartner and Forrester are “pay for play,” otherwise why spend the money on the annual contract. In this post we will look less at the techniques and more at the realized benefits of a program of regular analyst inquiry.
Gaining real information
The stated purpose for inquires is to gain greater depth and understanding of an analyst’s research and opinions. As always, you should review the currently published materials before scheduling a briefing. However, inquiry can provide insights into an analysts’ work-in-progress and allow you to […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
For the most part the SageCircle blog concentrates how various members of the tech analyst ecosystem interact more effectively with the analysts (e.g., AR best practices and research consumer tips). This post is an experiment to give the community a chance to give a few friendly tips to the analysts.
SageCircle heavily encourages the use of inquiry for both communications and IT vendor AR teams and end-user client researcher consumers. While most analysts are well prepared for inquires we have personally experienced and received comments from members of the analyst ecosystem about those analysts that might have needed a bit more coffee before getting on the phone. One not so amusing story is the analyst who could not discuss the research he had written, could not remember writing it and […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.