Monday 13 June 2005

A new Aberdeen arises

Analyzing the Analysts Azul Partners, a research company that writes supportive marketing content for its clients, has been hired by Aberdeen Group. The master has become the student: this is exactly the sort of research that Aberdeen was disrespected for in the 1990s. Its reputation for bias was legend. Now the firm has a new, and better, business model. However, old habits die hard. Aberdeen has commissioned a report (http://www.azulpartners.com/Downloads/AzulPartners_TheRealDeal.pdf) which shows their firm to be every bit the equal of Gartner.

Azul's report has the same problems as those of the 'old' Aberdeen: In tendency, perhaps the findings are partly correct. However, the stark extremity of the findings leaves the whole thing very doubtful. Aberdeen Group may have a new model, but it seems that Azul is the new Aberdeen.

4 comments:

ARonaut said...

Absolutely hilarious: Aberdeen commissioning another firm to create a "survey" to restore their long lost credibility. This is so... Microsoft!

theARpro said...

Hi Jason,

Here's a quote from your website:
"Azul Partners works with executive teams and marketing organizations to develop content that takes a point of view and stands above the crowd, displaying a depth of knowledge and subject matter expertise that tells the market that they need to be talking to you.
"From product positioning to thought campaigns designed to change the basis of competition, Azul Partners develops content to help organizations take their marketing to the next level. We don’t just help you sell to the market. We help you influence it."

Your firm exists to write marketing content. No-one would hire your firms to do research that was not developed with marketing in mind. The process you describe is well known to all of us who hired Aberdeen in the 1990s: write the study and, if the results can be made to look good, publish them.

No-one can blame you for maintaining this charade in order to defend Aberdeen's investment. You are certainly doing great work for this. But we both no that no independent third party, not working from a list of contacts largely provided by Aberdeen, could replicate these results.

Honestly, you need to learn from the 'old' Aberdeen. Even they limited their clients excesses.

theARpro said...

Louis Columbus indicates some of the issues with this study...

"Free trial to Aberdeen Access as an incentive. This is troubling. The fact that one in three took it says that respondents may have felt compelled to give glowing reviews to Aberdeen to make sure they got this.

"Show us your respondents. I couldn't find a listing of the companies contacted, and the description of respondents in this report doesn't really indicate how many companies there are included. Red flag: Aberdeen provided the respondents out of their database -- were they cherry-picked or random? We don't know.

"Questionnaire needs to be shown. Like the Little Caesar's example above, how can anyone be sure the questions were unbiased? No one knows -- but solid research always provides the questionnaire as an appendix.

""...no firm or individual had undertaken a primary research study to look at how vendors and end users perceive analyst firms in today's market." Azul Partners, please Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) the following companies: Analyst Strategy Group; Lighthouse Analyst Relations; Outsell; Photizogroup. Each has a current study exactly on this topic with results varying from the Azul study."

Louis' article is at at
http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/Q3kH38RY1EpnNd/Discovering-Real-Influencers.xhtml (See under 'Analyst heal thyself'.

Anonymous said...

There are times to just shut up and put up. The comments from Azul here do nothing to convince anyone that this once rancid firm is ever going to convince anyone that they are worthy of respect.