Tag: industry analysts

Right reasons – Evaluate why you are purchasing analyst services [Purchasing Analyst Services, Part 2]

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icon-budget-cuts-105w.jpgThere are many reasons why companies, enterprises, and vendors buy analysts services. Unfortunately, many buyers do not carefully document their reasons for acquiring analyst services which often leads to buying the wrong services from the wrong firms.

Two prime beneficiaries of this type of mistake are Gartner and Forrester because they are often the only firms with any significant mindshare with buyers. They also have the largest sales forces knocking on doors. Because both firms are the highest priced – and raising prices further still – going with the well known brands as a default can be an expensive mistake. That is not to say that Forrester and Gartner cannot deliver business value at market rates on particular topics, but other firms might deliver equal or better advice for less money.

Buyers should carefully examine the desired outcomes for using analyst research and recommendations. For instance, if a CIO wants to ensure that her budgets for a industry specific technology are in line with others in her market, then going with a firm with a strong research team in that vertical is important. Another example is a vendor looking to […]

Top social media analysts leave Forrester and IDC

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News is that IDC Research Director Rachel Happe (Twitter handle, blog) and Forrester VP & Principal Analyst Charlene Li (Twitter handle, blogless for now) are leaving their firms.

These departures are big blows for both firms, though in different ways. Rachel was really IDC’s sole expert on social media so her departure eliminates a big piece of IDC’s intellectual property on this market. Forrester has a team of social media experts, so expertise is not the problem. For Forrester, Charlene’s departure is a loss of prestige and credibility as Charlene is one of the most highly visible experts in this market. Obviously neither loss is a fatal blow to either firm,  but they need to work to fill the holes quickly.  

(Added 7/3/08 at 5 am PT. Links to Rachel’s and Charlene’s blog posts)

Leaving IDC…Joining Mzinga Rachel

Why I’m Leaving Forrester Charlene

Here is an update on Charlene via Twitter “Looking at options, likely will be on my own with a combo of blogging, speaking, consulting, and influence building”

Remember, most analyst firms have not invested in knowledge management systems so most information that analysts get in vendor briefings and other sources is stored […]

Killer questions to ask PR agencies to see if they are AR pretenders or contenders

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icon-the-press-110w.jpgThere are many drawbacks to using PR agencies to conduct analyst relations – not the least that most analysts hate dealing with agency staff.  Sometimes, however, communications and IT vendors have no choice but to farm out some analyst-related activities. To minimize the chance of agency staff causing problems with the analysts, vendors need to carefully evaluate whether or not a PR agency is actually competent in analyst relations before hiring them.

A technique SageCircle has developed is asking a series of questions in the form of scenarios about AR situations. The responses to the scenarios can then be graded for compliance with AR best practices and insights as to how the analysts work. As always, it is important to weight the questions because some will be more important than others. In addition, it is critical that a standard evaluation framework be established so that responses from different agencies will be graded consistently.

The killer questions should not just be asked of the agency’s senior executive that is trying to win the business, but also the staff that will actually be doing the work.  Reluctance by the agency to introduce you to the staff should raise red flags about the breadth and depth of AR expertise in the firm.

The first killer question to ask the PR agency rainmaker and staff is […]

Analyst firms’ editorial calendars

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Here are the links to the editorial calendars for Gartner and Forrester that we mentioned during the just completed Coffee Talk. Note: After I asked on Twitter, The451 ICE’s service director sent me a link to ICE’s upcoming research.

Gartner Editorial Calendar for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes Don’t forget that at the end of July, the Gartnerians are going to expand their editorial calendar to include planned research other than MQs and Marketscopes.

Forrester Planned Research This page defaults to showing only the planned research for you role. Click on “Show all documents,” which is just […]

Notes from Gartner’s Quarterly AR Call – Themes are royalty, expanded editorial calendar, org changes

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On Thursday, June 19th Gartner’s Vendor Relations team held its regular quarterly analyst relations (AR) call. Because the Gartnerians do not currently offer a transcript of the call, just a replay, SageCircle is providing detailed notes.

SageCircle Advisory clients are encouraged to schedule an inquiry to discuss the call and how to apply the insights to their specific situations.

Themes – Research themes are important organizing principles like topics, roles and industries. Gartner themes cut across all boundaries and most research organizations write themes for their perspective. Themes are coordinated by the Senior Research Board. Themes are usually new or emerging topics, though some are existing topics with new relevance or enhanced impact. You should expect to get questions about themes during briefings and anticipate analysts using themes as a point-of-reference. Listed are the existing themes with their “champions.”

  • Green IT
    • Championed by Simon Mingay
  • Consumerization of IT

How to track a lot of analyst blogs and Twitter streams without spending a lot of time

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgOne of the side effects of the growing use of social media by IT industry analysts and analyst relations (AR) is a pending sense of doom that we are going to get overwhelmed by too… much… stuff. This certainly came out in discussions at the US Forrester AR Council panel I was on and in blog posts like When do we get work done? I certainly have felt that way in the past, but slowly and surely I have picked up techniques that permit me to monitor a fairly large number of social media streams (110+ blogs and 140+ Twitter streams) without spending hours a day doing so. In this post I will share these tips.

Note: These tip and tricks are not necessarily the absolutely best-in-class, merely ones that we have found to-date. Nor are the tools mentioned the results of systematic research and evaluation, merely ones that we have played with and decided to use. As we continue to expand the portfolio of tips and tools, we will make sure to share them with you.

The main tips are to use an RSS reader and to organize your feeds in folders*. This saves you the time of checking individual blogs that might not have any activity. The following example explains […]

Tip: create seating charts for analyst summits

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Jonathan Eunice (LinkedIn) sent along a tip about a seating chart creation tool called Simple Seating. A quick scan reveals several similar tools, often aimed at party panners or educators. We recommend seating plans as a really useful tool for those in charge of planning an analyst event. We think it is a best practice[…]

An analyst has some advice for PR agencies

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Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady in Bad PR – The Bane of My Existence: Seven Suggestions for PR Workers has some practical advice for PR professionals at agencies. Here are his seven suggestions (details in the post):

  1. Analysts Are Not Press: Don’t Treat Them as if They Are
  2. Caller ID Works: Don’t Just Keep Calling, and Calling, and Calling
  3. Personalization: Don’t Address Your Notes “Dear Blogger”
  4. Press Releases: Don’t Use it as […]