Eggxodus (twice updated)

Two ex-Eggheads have posted rather alarming posts on the mother ship today:

• Trouble at t’ Ovum mill by Duncan Brown from Influencer50


• More departures at Ovum by Duncan Chapple (who rather surprisingly links to DuncanB's post)

The rumours key figures were leaving Ovum are thus confirmed by the Duncans: Ian Westley is retiring and Gary Barnett (ranked here quite highly) is leaving for a new venture still wrapped under a shroud of secrecy.

These departures follows a few others, including Cathy Ring (gone to Nelson Hall) and according to DuncanB "Ovum only has 6 SITS analysts left, from a core team of 17 prior to the acquisition by Datamonitor".

Apparently, many regret the good old pre-IPO times, the fun and debate even if it meant a less profitable business and despise the current management. The least we can say is that the culture clash isn't managed well by the Datamonibores, not surprisingly as the market research (churning out highly-leveraged off the shelf research) has in fine little resemblance with an high-end Telco/IT advisory service. Coincidentally, we heard of another departure on the Butler side as it seems Teresa Jones is joining to the Borg.

ARmadgeddon's take: although naysayers are predicting the death knell for Ovum in its current Telco/IT RAS form, there are still a few strong players at Ovum and Butler even though the current organisation and brands are confusing the marketplace. We can only hope for swift remedial actions to restore hope.

UPDATE: Anthony Parslow sent a long response to Duncan's (Brown) post and it contains some interesting points that were overlooked by Duncan (Chapple) as well as by ourselves:

• David Mitchell has been appointed SVP (he's got a picture on his bio) IT research -and he certainly knows about IT research business.


• Apparently the staffing projections were somewhat wrong as Ovum "should have 35 people in our IT Research team at Ovum by year end not 6", including Cornelia Wels-Maug (based in Germany) and Ian Brown (ex Borg, not ex-Stone Roses).

So, le's hope for the best: to have a local alternative to the Borg, with approachable analysts not stuck in research silos.

28/9 UPDATE: Richard Holway seems to think that the analyst turnover has seriously impacted Ovum's customer proximity.

Although the significance of loosing bright analysts such as the Neils and Gary can't be underplayed in what is first and foremost a people's business, it will nevertheless be interesting to watch whether Ovum can regain momentum while under a more structured management.

Previous posts:

• The big fish that ate the fish that ate the fish that...


• Datamonibores penetrates the gametes


• Ovum buys Orbys to grow outsourcing services [ANALYST EQUITY]


• Ovum targets vendors


• Ovum is floating -just about


• Ovum to IPO, Forrester loses sales VP


• Has Forrester missed a golden opportunity?


• Making it up While Drinking


• Ovum seeks intelligence head, Gartner Watch in quest of integrity


• Weekly digest


• Ovum breaks the iPod cellphone embargo?


• Ovum makes a move!


• Furl'ing: Ovum, Aberdeen and Gartner in the blogs


• Is Ovum ambitious?