What makes a good analyst?

Some further thoughts on my earlier post on analysts. I was thinking back to my analyst firm days and trying to decide if one could predict who would become a good analyst based on their background. The only trend is that there wasn’t really a trend – we hired people from all sorts of background and some were better than others.

What I have noticed, though, is that the analysts that did most end-user engagements and consulting tended to be those with an end-user background. They had the authority and confidence to make recommendations on what to buy.

Analysts with other backgrounds tended to be more market/industry based and provided advice to the supply side. There, issues of competitive pressures and market forces prevail, and such knowledge can be acquired by clever people. Useful to vendors, but not really for end-users.

Having said all this, I apologise to any former colleague who is offended by my generalisation. Eleven years in analyst firms taught me to judge people by their capabilities and competences, not by their background.

Questioning the value of analysts

Fascinating discussion on the role and value of analysts, initiated by an end user (for once) – James Gardner works as Head of Innovation and Research at Lloyds TSB.

Read the post in full to understand James’s frustrations in full. But, in summary, James is unconvinced by the quality of analysts (“IT analysts are little more than glorified journalists”), and even more annoyed by analyst firms’ name seat licence model. He finishes with “here is my message to the top tier IT Analysts firms we currently use: your time with us is limited if you don’t make it easy for us to get value from what we buy.” Wonder what the Lloyds TSB account manager at Gartner is thinking…

James’s post was picked up by, amongst others, David Rossiter who runs AR firm Sunesis and who was surprisingy supportive of James’s negative comments. Duncan Chapple, who runs AR firm Lighthouse, was unsurprisingly firm in his rebuttal. Read these posts to get a good view of both sides of the argument.

For my part, having worked as an end-user for 6 years then at analyst firms for over eleven years, I’m somewhat bemused by the debate. In a large sense you get what you pay for and what you’re prepared to accept as advice. If you find yourself taking advice from a junior analyst with little or no industry experience then you might want to validate that advice with a third party that does have such experience.

Analyst firms all have the problem of scale – how to share their scarce expertise with a large audience. This initially led to syndicated research and subscription services, and ultimately (in the bigger firms) to recruiting more junior analysts to do the legwork, while the star analysts headline research programmes. This model has worked well from a revenue and shareholder viewpoint, though gripes about customer service and access to analysts have been an issue for ages. (At Ovum (1995-2004) we implemented a customer account manager whose job it was to keep customers happy, in response to other firms’ alleged poor service.)

All of this points to the fact that not all analysts are equal, even within the big firms like Gartner and Forrester. There are the stars and there are the rest. Only those analysts with deep and relevant expertise have extensive influence over end-users. You just need to know which is which.

Analysts influence, as measured by HP – update

I admit I didn’t expect a reply to my post on HP’s measurement of analyst influence, but a reply I received (see the comment on the post). Hats off to Bob at HP for disclosing the rankings of their survey.

The question is: what influences HP’s customers’ decisions to place a vendor on the short-list when purchasing products and services. The rank is:

1. Experience with Vendor
2. TCO
3. Price [statistically significant gap between top 3 and next 5]
4. Analyst Reports
5. Events
6. Vendor Internet
7. Analyst Verbal [statistically significant gap between top 8 and rest]
8. Financial Analyst
9. Marketing Collateral
10. Blogs/Social
11. Media Coverage
12. Direct Marketing
13. Advertising

Inital observations:

- how powerful vendor experience is. We always see competing vendors as strong influencers in any market, but I didn’t expect them to rated top.
- financial considerations are key, but not necessarily the financial performance of the vendor itself (if the low ranking of financial analysts is indicative).
- events are much higher than I’d have expected.
- interesting difference between analyst reports and analyst advice in forming a shortlist.
- social media and blogs are on the radar, but still low.
- very low showing for the media
- why does any firm bother with direct marketing and advertising these days?!

Also, I’m surprised at the absence of advisory consultants and players in the supply chain (VARs, SIs, etc). It may depend on the markets being surveyed.

Still interesting stuff and valuable contribution to the wider influence debate. Thanks to Bob for sharing the info.

Bob asks the community to share its data – we’re currently putting a paper together on the Influencer50 research. Anyone else?

The original HP announcement is here.

Influence, independence and impact

Good post from Jon on the influence, independence and impact of analysts. It comes spookily hot on the heels of Alan PS’s note on the independence of analysts. That this issue still pops up decades after it was first raised undermines the credibility of the analyst industry. When I was at Ovum, we declined to take money from vendors for white papers, but changed our minds several times during my time there (1995-2004). At IDC (2004-2006) we happily and regularly took money from vendors for white papers. At both organisations we claimed independence.

At Influencer50 we are, not surprisingly, focused on influence. But it’s always important to say what we mean when we try to identify and measure it. We think independence and impact are constituents of influence. A lack of independence erodes influence, but doesn’t eliminated it. There are plenty of folks working at vendor firms that are themselves influential, but you wouldn’t expect them to be independent. Vested interest, as long as it’s declared, is the key issue.

The main issue is, then, transparency. So, come on analysts. Why not declare the extent of revenue from vendors. Name your clients and the proportion of revenues they contribute.

Perhaps the IIAR could define (or rate?) analyst firms on their independence…

Carter Lusher’s new gig

You may have heard that Carter, who ran AR at HP in the US, departed HP recently. He emailed me yesterday to point out his new role, heading up a reborn SageCircle AR firm. I read Carter’s blog while he was at HP, so his SageCircle Blog should be similarly stimulating. Good luck on the new gig, Carter.

Interestingly, the blog site names this blog as an AR blog, not the first time I’ve been pigeonholed as such. Lord help anyone visiting here expecting advice on how to run an AR practice. Read this post from Skip, then come back and see analysts in the holistic context of influencer ecosystems…

I also note that SageCircle blogs cite (what I guess are) SageCircle’s competitors – ASG, KCG, Lighthouse, Tiger Lily, etc. Good on you, SageCircle. It’s a small market and the more informed the target audience the better for all. Grow the pie, as they say.

It’s also good influencing strategy, as your competitors are usually influencing your audience. Engage with them, arther than ignore them. It nearly always has benefits.

HP’s Lusher on AR and social media

Carter Lusher, AR head at HP and ex-Gartner analyst, posts on the use of social media by analyst firms (synopsis: not enough) and wonders on the impact of blogging on influence from analysts. Great issues.

The current position, as I see it, is that bloggers have relatively little influence on CIO-level execs and business folk. They do, however, have influence in the more techie arenas. Big generalisations, of course, but it seems to hold for most markets, and makes a reasonable starting hypothesis. Demographics are also an important feature of socila media’s reach (but this may be changing: if The Archers are podcasting, anyone can…). Country differences also exist (e.g. France is generally more blog-friendly…).

It’s important to recognise that bloggers are often influential because of their “day job” and just happen to blog nowadays. Richard Holway is a good example. Blogging is a means of access, and it allows previously inaccessible people to gain exposure. So you find DBAs and developers emerging as influential bloggers – their influence is expanded out to the web, beyond the confines of their employers.

In researching case studies for the book, I discovered that blogging and other social media need to be dedicated activities, with time and budget allocated. Otherwise it’s just dabbling, as Carter points out in IDC’s approach.

The key question is always, influential on whom? If analysts are trying to influence CIOs then there is no immediate need to blog, because CIOs generally don’t read them. James Governor is successful because he aims at the more techie audience, and is thus more influential on that audience.

The trick, then, is to monitor blog readership closely, and to respond when the sitation changes.

How analysts can increase their influence

It turns out that I’m becoming known for my “analyst bashing” blog posts and other writings. It’s not a reputation I’ve sought. But I’ve made no secret that I think analyst influence is generally overstated, and that’s with eleven years of inside knowledge at Ovum and IDC. I’ve seen analysts with huge influence and those with very little. The real issue is, how do you tell them apart?  

As Richard Holway told me:

Any fool can be an analyst
But very few get to be influencers.

Bill Hopkins’s AR text Influencing the Influencers maps out very clearly why a few analyst firms carry the majority of influence within the analyst community – I commend you to read it. As Bill states in the book, “Some influencers are more vital to you than others.” Though it’s completely obvious if you think about it, many vendors (and AR agencies) don’t think about it, and propagate blanket importance of analysts. PR agencies do the same with journalists.

I think a primary challenge for all analyst firms is to make their analysts more influential. The first question to be asked, as always, is who do they influence? A better way of understanding the relevance of this question is to ask another: who do vendors want to be influenced by analysts? Usually, vendors are trying to influence decision makers, so that they buy products and services. It’s logical, therefore, to want to know which analysts have influence over those decision makers, that can sway a decision in one direction on another. These are what Hopkins calls Deal Makers and Breakers.

Clearly, then, the more analysts are influencing decision makers the more influential they are to vendors. And while it’s risky to categorise all analysts within one firm together, a firm’s business model will point to the likelihood of influence on decision makers. So Gartner, with its end-user research focus and consulting business, is likely to be more influential than, say, IDC, which has a predominantly supply-side viewpoint.

Additionally, the closer an analyst gets to the decision maker, the more influence they will have on that decision. In my experience, this deep level of influence is delivered only through client engagements and consulting. So analysts that directly advise decision makers carry the greatest influence.

There is also an issue of when influence is being applied. Analyst research papers are used by end-users as guidance and pointers, sometimes in the development of shortlists. This occurs early in the decision making process. Consulting, again in my experience, happens later in the process where evaluations and recommendations are being made. At this point the stakes are high, and individual analysts much be sure in their understanding of both the needs of their client and the capabilities of the vendors they are judging.

I think that this is where many analysts, and analyst firms, cop out. They are unwilling, or unable, to help a specific end-user client make a final decision. They may claim that doing so would conflict with their vendor independence. Nonsense. Recommending a specific product to a specific end-user organisation does not conflict with independence, as long the same analyst is just as likely to recommend a different product to another client with different needs.

So I think analyst firms should tell their analysts to get out more. Talk to, engage with, and start influencing end-user decision makers. It’s the only route to real influence.

Handling detractors – What Ovum and IDC illustrate about Influencer Marketing

Last week I posted some thoughts on the current fortunes of my previous employers, Ovum and IDC. Both posts expressed my concern at their present situation and questioned their future direction, though for different reasons. The feedback I got from the firms, and from the wider community, illustrate some interesting aspects of influence. In particular, what should you do when a blogger (in this case, me) creates a negative view of your firm?

I should say at this point that I consider myself as an influencer in neither of the two firms. As a former employee, most recently from IDC, I guess I have some insight into the firms’ inner workings. But I doubt I’m affecting purchase decisions in a big way.

Anyway, this post documents the reaction from Ovum. I have to say I was surprised that Anthony contact li’l ol’ me, but flattered was I that he took the considerable time. Unfortunately his response, which I published in full with Anthony’s consent, was received by the wider community with more negativity, most notably by Richard Holway. Now Richard is an influencer – did Anthony’s response spark an otherwise sleeping discontent amongst Richard and his followers?

In contrast, I’ve heard not a peep out of IDC. Have they read my post? Maybe not. Do they care? Probably not.

There are three strategies to deal with a so-called detractor. You can (1) try to convert them, (2) surround them with other (more positive) influencers, thereby neutralising them, or (3) you can ignore them. Ovum is attempting strategy #1. IDC is practising #3 (by default or design).

Microsoft’s Blue Monster gig with Hugh McLeod is an example of #2, where MS are attempting to engage with its influencer (and wider) community to address the tide of negativity towards it. Smart move, executed creatively.

How would you handle a detractor?

Trouble at IDC too

Further to recording the troubles at Ovum, it turns out that my other former analyst employer is also having issues. IDC is focus primarily on hitting its profit targets, and having failed has made 5 people redundant. The significance of this is that redunancies included sales staff which, in a sales orientated organisation, indicates a sharp drop in revenues.

IDC is desparately trying to move up the thought leader stack and change its image as a “data-monkey numbers factory” (and I’m not the originator of this phrase). It has two challenges. The first is its poor depth of good analysts in Europe. Some are excellent, but most lack insight and strong opinions.

Secondly, it continues to struggle to penetrate the end-user market. Its Insights business units were loss-making to June last year (when I left IDC) and I doubt whether they’ve made a substantial turnaround now. Financial Insights longs to advise banks on IT strategy, but more usually advises vendors on how to pentrate the banking sector – traditional supply-side IDC fodder. There are claims that IDC is increasing in influence but influence on whom? Not end-user decision makers. As always, the key question is, who are you trying to influence?

This is at the time when IDC management seem to be on a charm offensive, inviting AR professionals (Duncan Chapple at least) to its flagship IT Forum, and lately addressing the IIAR. I wonder if anyone asked them about projected profitability…

Review of H+K’s Influencing Technology Decision Makers research

There’s a really interesting video and white paper produced by Hill and Knowlton, the PR/AR firm. The title is Influencing Technology Decision Makers (sounds relevant!) and the work is based on a research project carried out on behalf of H+K.

On the whole it is a really thought-provoking piece of research. The interesting bits, for me, are (in italics, with my comments):

• Previous experience is the primary driver for decision making. I agree, and where a decision maker doesn’t have this experience they have to borrow it from another source – influencers.
• Decision makers are cynical towards sales collateral and marketing messages. Yep.
• There is increasing influence of blogs, even in the C-suite. I disagree – we’ve completed a round of research for a client which shows that, except in France, blogs have little influence at the C-level. Blogs do tend to influence more technical audiences, and where blogs are part of the cultural make-up of the market under investigation (i.e. predominately online markets).
• Gartner and Forrester are the leading analysts, and there is not much between them. Gartner has greater influence on the IT managers, while Forrester is more widely read in the boardroom. Interesting. This indicates that Forrester has caught up with Gartner, and has more credibility with senior decision makers. We certainly see these two far and away the biggest influential analysts.
• Events are not that influential. I think this referred to analyst events, but I find it’s true in general. Gartner Symposium is the only analyst event that occurs in our research on a regular basis.
• The Financial Times is the most influential non-IT publication. The Wall Street Journal leads in the US but trails the FT in other countries. In the UK, the Sunday Times, Telegraph and The Economist ran highest. No real surprises here, except perhaps for the poor showing of the Journal outside the US.
• Print media is more widely read than online media. I agree, though the boundaries are often being blurred. As far as I know, the study didn’t track whether a respondent that read the FT did so in print or online format.
• Analysts are important throughout the decision making process. Absolutely. In the book we’ve mapped various influencer types to the decision making process, and analysts play more roles than any other type. It’s important to understand, though, that although analyst firms play various roles, it’s not the same analysts that play all roles.
• Use the media and analysts to influence decision makers, not to please your CEO on tour. Hoorah! If vendors take a decision maker focus, rather than creating noise to satisfy their own internal ends, then they might not annoy their customers and prospects so much. It is refreshing to hear this from a PR/AR firm.

The big criticism: where are the other influencers? This study only looks at the media, analysts and blogs. What about consultants, resellers, peers, user groups, academics, procurement experts, gurus and thought leaders, or the vendors themselves? I’d love to see the research run next year with this broader remit.

(A few words on the methodology. The research involved 420 interviews, across the UK, US Canada and China, and were conducted using a mix of online, face-to-face and telephone interviews. Interviews were also split by C-Suite and IT managers, and by large enterprises and SMEs. The sample looks a bit thin, when spread across all of these splits. But good food for thought.)