AR is a sales job with no quota

Karen Rohack Mclaughlin, Queen Buckaroo at QB Comm, Inc., wrote these notes of a Silicon Vlley PRSA meeting two or three years ago. Re-reading them, I think think deserve a wider audience. To find out more about the SV-PRSA, visit siliconprsa.org.

(AR) has evolved into a critical function due to the industry analyst’s ability to impact a firm’s shareholder price, strategic position and overall mindshare buzz.

The panel explained that AR is a sales job with no quota and no typical day. As with PR, AR influences the mindshare of a key audience by educating them about the company’s business and marketing strategy, key messages and by freely exchanging information. The panel felt AR provides a good return on investment because of its ability to understand the competitive landscape, its positive impact on a company’s strategy and message development, and its ability to give management an honest viewpoint about what’s happening in the marketplace.

A panelist commented that PR tends to take a short-term view, while AR has a more long-term perspective and relationship-building function. This comment made me wonder if AR’s exposure to PR is not to its strategic planning and execution functions, but rather only to the tactical, short-term PR projects such as product intros, new programs and initiatives and crisis response.

What Makes An AR Program Successful? The panel emphasized that support from senior management—their provision of time, financial resources and staff --- are all crucial for the long-term success of an AR program. The panelist’s AR departments averaged between two and 20 people, and all utilized some type of “home grown” contact database solution to keep track of analyst contacts.

While it was mentioned that Cisco offers an annual two-day analyst conference that is a combo of AR and Investor Relations (IR), the panel cautioned that it’s not a good idea to do a large mixed-analyst briefing for a new product or company initiative, especially with tier one analysts. One-on-one briefings are best. However, a large briefing of analysts from one firm can be a cost-effective way to communicate.

Similar to the way many of us set up our press relations, HP tiers their analysts. Level one analysts receive one-on-one briefings and more direct contact, while levels two and three are updated mainly through teleconferences. The panel also noted that because analysts know the market and the players, they can be used to bulletproof presentations, messages and to fine-tune company or product positioning. The AR department can help PR select the appropriate analysts for these types of briefings.

AR’s Biggest Challenge: The analyst landscape is constantly changing. With so many mergers and acquisitions, customer solutions are expanding, so there is a real need to balance corporate vs. technology messages to the analysts. One panelist mentioned, “...many don’t know where the industry is going, so we’re all hedging our bets with strategy/product solutions.”

Key Points to Remember: In AR, you can never rest on your laurels. AR is only one data point for the analysts to secure information about a company’s strategy, technologies or products. It takes hard work to continue to be viewed as an important and knowledgeable resource to the analysts and to reinforce your company’s mindshare and analyst relationships. Also, there must be a strong synergy between the AR/PR/IR functions, as all are important partners in the communications effort. It’s critical to keep everyone updated on goals, strategies, programs, and the competitive and internal issues that might impact the audience.

It's time to cut Rob Enderle some slack.

I never thought I'd say this. It's time to cut Rob Enderle some slack.

As his resume reminds us, Rob Enderle is one of the most referenced analysts (according to analysis of the US media by long-dead Kensington Group, whose data reflected his years with Giga). He will comment to the media on almost anything. He is the analyst industry's answer of the Hollywood star who turns up if she's invited to the opening of an envelope.

An article in 'The Register', Sun zinged by rent-a-quote analyst, mentions that Enderle is not only critical of Sun, but is also paid by Sun's competitors. The Register's premise is the idea that Enderle's comments are swayed against Sun because his customers include competitors of Sun. The article describes Enderle as a 'rent-a-quote' analyst: they feel Enderlie has been rented by Sun's competitors to be critical of that fim.

Here on the ARmadgeddon campus we take a neutral view towards Sun and its fortunes. We know that many of its customers have remained fans of the firm for good reasons. However, it's a bit like being a fan of the Seattle Seahawks. There are few victories that attract fairweather friends. Indeed, even rehirings are seen as a victory -- a sign that things are at least not as bad as they were recently.

It has to be admitted that you don't need to rent analysts to get them to criticize Sun. It's a technical and evangelical organization, facing an analyst community that is increasingly disinterested in technology - almost to the point of naïveté. Sun sells to tech-savvy companies more easily than most. Analysts increasingly dismiss strong technology as 'speeds and feeds', sometime for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons

On the same Register web page was an advert for one of Sun's competitors. It seems unfair for 'The Register' to not judge others by its own standards. How can it assume that Enderle has been 'rented', when we are sure they they would say that they have not been. How come analysts' are corrupted by vendor money, in their view, when The Register is not?

Of course, these are ridiculous standards: analysts are able to comment on technology vendors partly because they are paid by multiple competitors, without being corrupted. Many analysts are paid by Sun's competitors -- and by Sun. The idea that are 'rented' simply by being consulted by these organizations is lazy and untrue.

If 'The Register' was to make these charges against a large analyst house, like Gartner, then lawyers would be involved right now. Rob and his partner don't have in-house legal staff, but they must surely be considering it.

P.S. The comments on this post have encouraged us to clarify our views. Our criticism is that The Register assumes that Enderle is biased against Sun because his clients include competitors of Sun. In our opinion, this is not the right basis on which to be critical of Enderle (Perhaps this is the right basis. We also point readers to the fourth comment here). Other analysts are also hired by Sun's competitors and, of course, The Register also has those firms as clients. In our opinion it is unfair, if not fatuous, for The Register to assume that Enderle is corrupted simply by these commercial links -- especially since The Register has the same links (and presumably feels that it is not biased by its advert revenue).

Fox News certainly is biased. However, the right does not need to pay Fox for it to criticize the left. Fox would do that for free. Similarly, Enderle does not need to be paid to criticize Sun: Enderle will do that for free.

The Register's article aims to discredit Enderle simply because of his commercial ties, and not because of the correctness or falsehood of his views. In our opinion, that is a red herring. It is also dangerous for analyst relations professionals. If analysts are discredited simply because their clients include vendors, then this will make it harder for both users and vendors. Like it or not, analysts are less biased than other sources. That is why businesses trust them. Analyst houses would be not more or less independent if they did not have vendors as clients: but they would be smaller, less economical, more expensive and less effective. That is is no-ones' interest. Specifically for AR professionals, The Register's baiting of analysts also obstructs our work. We want our colleagues to be less anxious towards analysts: The Register simply throws more trash into the sea of putrid cynicism.

Of course, this does not mean that Enderle is right with this -- or any -- comment he gets into the media. However, we do feel that any errors in analysts' views are as much despite close relationship with vendors as they are because of those relationships.

El Reg takes on The Economist and Rob Enderle

The Registers fires at pointblank on Rob Enderle on the allegation he's a "rent-a-quote analyst" paid by Sun's competitors:
Sun zinged by rent-a-quote analyst | The Register

The article contains some strong language, which seems to be a trademark of Ashlee Vance. But who pays HIM?

Beyond the apparent scandal, this raises again the issue of transparency in the analyst community.

See also:
The Governor, ancient Iraq and Gartner

AR 101 series: NDA's

Briefings under NDA are not only a recurring question for AR newbies but are also the source of ongoing debates among the AR community, see for instance the comments on this SVG post:

• Gartner analysts to no longer agree to non-disclosure agreements for briefings [ARmadgeddon]

1. What is an NDA?
In industry analyst relations terms, it is used when vendors schedule an analyst for briefings containing information not publicly available. These briefings are commonly referred to as "under NDA", after the "Non Disclosure Agreement" analysts are kindly asked to sign. This agreement is prepared by our friends from the legal department and is a contract which simply aims at protecting the IP discussed during this briefing. As a contract, it needs to be signed by both parties to be binding. It also should have a specific timeframe during which the IP is under NDA and should delimit very clearly what is covered: products, strategy, offerings, competitive tactics, etc...
The term NDA is commonly used outside of AR, not only in the IT industry but also in general business. In the dark world of media relations, this is similar to an embargo, in that a date and time is before before which the information cannot be shared. As often with PR, it has a much more restricted meaning as it usually describes a one-way communication that should not be reported before the announcement date. Unlike an NDA, an embargo works on trust rather than legal force. Phil posted another definition here.


2. Why should I organise NDA briefings?
The simple answer is because both parties have an interest in doing so.

With NDA briefings, vendors can schedule briefings ahead of announcements and make sure air-miles-junkies get the news (old news is no news). Those briefings are also an opportunity to get feedback before releasing something into the wild, thus potentially avoiding big and costly mistakes or refining the messaging (see #8).

On the other side of the table, and as we mentioned here, analysts are interested first and foremost by future strategies and roadmaps. The essence of their job is analysing information they have gathered, so access to unpublished details is a differentiator for them.

NDA briefings also benefit users who are clients of both analysts and vendors: imagine a bank considering a new application and hiring an analyst to advise. You're about to launch a new release and the analyst is not briefed. You missed the sale because you were not on the short list. Now consider the case where the analyst was briefed under NDA: he can say something like "I think you should also go to vendor X and ask them a pitch on their upcoming product release". You may be considered for the RFP and have a chance to get the deal!


3. When should I do briefings under NDA?
Vendors should use NDA's wisely. If the whole marketplace is buzzing about an upcoming announcement, they may become a laughing stock when trying to enforce NDA which does not bring new news to the analyst.
On the political side of things, NDA briefings might also a good way for AR professionals to be covered in case of leaks (see #5 and 6).


4. What form should I use?
If you have a legal background, you should know. In any other case , go to your legal department or legal counsel. The form usually asks analysts not to talk or write about what was disclosed until a specific date. Make sure it's very specific on what is under NDA and until when. And always keep the required paperwork at hand.... (see also #7)


5. Do analysts break NDA's?
Analysts' existence largely depends on their reputation. If they are known to not abide by the rules of the game, they will quickly be excluded. On the corporations are ready to go to great length to avoid sensitive information to fall into public domain.
So it's no surprise if leaks are neither common nor widely publicised. It is often the case that analysts obtain information from other sources, like two well-known cases. It is more tricky to assess when analysts share something under NDA within their firm.
At the end of the day, it is a question of trust: only brief analysts that you have complete trust and resist pressures to extend your A list. Do give some though on the impact on your customers.


6. What can we do if an analyst don't observe an NDA?
The Apple Secrets case was a PR disaster and it's impossible to take back something that's published. Check your facts, make sure you clearly said it was under NDA. Then go to the analyst and ask some explanation. If inconclusive, ban the analyst and tell your peers. Keep in mind this is a one way avenue and that you won't easily recover this relationship. But the analyst should know too.


7. Should I always use a form?
No. Use the forms when the project discussed has very high sensitivity and exposure within your company to CYA. Most of the time, the form is there to inform the analyst -as we've seen in #6, there's little way to seek redress if things go pear shaped.
In most cases, analysts are pretty good with observing NDA's and it's a question to know which ones to trust or not.
However, be very careful to flag what is presented to analysts under a non-disclosure agreement, mark the sensitive slides as "VENDOR X INTERNAL USE ONLY" or similar injunctions. Orally, say it's under NDA several times. This also apply to customer references: if the customer and your account team did not explicitly approve for public consumption (make sure you have an email trail stating it), then release the story, the industry but not the name and say it's under NDA.


8. How do analysts react to NDA's?
Some perceive NDA as a signal that they are being admitted within a small trusted circle and react well! Others pretend to be offended because you don't trust them enough!

As with most things in business NDAs should not come as a surprise. Surprises are nice if you're a 10 and it's your birthday. Do let the analysts know when inviting them to a physical briefing that they'll be expected to sign an NDA. In the case of telephone briefings, do send them the form before, requiring they fax it back. Far too often AR people pass analysts NDAs, which basically forces the analyst to sign the NDA without reading it [which would mean the NDA would not stand up in a European court] or to delay the briefing until the NDA has been studied.

Some analysts refuse to sign NDAs because they feel NDAs prevent them from doing their work. Many also point out that NDAs are typically far too wide to be enforceable. To ease the concerns of these analysts, make sure dates and secrets are precisely stated and avoid blanket NDAs. Bear in mind that you're communicating information to help them do their job and broker it.

Some analysts will still refuse, claiming it's against their company policy (like the Gartner Borg). In many cases, Gartner has a blanket NDA with most large vendors, which can be okay. Do CYA with your legal department though.


9. An NDA briefing is not a consulting engagement
If you're after message testing and validation, then you should not expect analysts to deliver this for free. The temptation is great to call on their goodwill to get feedback but a line needs to be drawn somewhere. This will be the subject of a further AR 101 on briefings. Note that engagements under NDA are easier to police too.


Bottom line:

Vendors should use NDA with moderation, clearly delimit what is under NDA and what is not, specify a reasonable end date and resist abuse briefings to get feedback.

Analysts should not sign an NDA without specific date is mentioned or if products/offerings are not clearly marked out and be careful not to spill the beans.

Links:

Gartner analysts to no longer agree to non-disclosure agreements for briefings

AR 101 series: briefing analysts

Ovum breaks the iPod cellphone embargo?

Frank Gilroy, Entrepreneur: Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs)

Sacred Cow Dung: MYTH: NDAs are a Good Idea

Starting a Software Company: To NDA or not NDA

James Governor's MonkChips: On How To Brief Analysts what we are, and expect

The Devil's IT Dictionary: NDA

The Infamous EMC Storage Analyst Letter

IBM letter to a Isham Research

Borg Games

The feedback gathered after the latest AR Club meeting in London is interesting. It shows a growing dissatisfaction with the Gartner/Borg commercial practices, value for money and processes. Long gone are the days where most parts of the marketplace were "balanced" thanks to the META techno-utopians and where vendors could implement effective "dual-vendor" policies.

So it seems like the Borg is trying to sweat as much as possible from the resources they refer to as human by increasing analysts' billable time in several ways:

• There's been ample discussion, including with the only Borg analyst who should be credited for having the guts to come and discuss on this blog, about the Vendor Police trying to limit briefings to 30 minutes. Some vendors mentioned that Gartner is trying to force clients to use inquiry time for briefings. By decellerating and obstructing the effectiveness of the briefing booking process, vendors who can afford it simply book lots of advisory calls to take the place of the one briefing they and the analyst would have prefered. Furthermore, Gartner now bullies clients to buy an advisory user seat for EVERY participant who wants to speak. This might be great for meeting sales quotes, but it wastes the analysts' time and frustrates our spokespeople.
  
• Of course, some suspect the Borg want to monitor useage and divert inquiries to less busy analysts. Forcing briefings to be booked as advisory sessions increases all the usage ratios. It's even better if analysts who don't know very much are used: then one inquiry turns into three or four. That's a massive waste of everyone's time, but it makes all the rations looks great (apart from next year's renewal figure).
  
• Others have commented that the vendor briefing process is painful and is slowing down, not only for having to go through the Vendor Police (and having to fill in a form even if an analyst has informally pencilled in an appointment) but also being told in some cases that "the analysts were not available". We suspect that the system diverts requests from busier analysts to slacker analysts, regardless of their relevance. Therefore briefing requests either get declined or are accepted by analysts who want to look busy.
  
• The policy seems to be increasingly endorsed and enforced by sales teams.
  
• It seems that Gartner is also trying to discourage the use of SAS days for speaking engagements with tactics such as charging for travel time or bundling-in hyperinflated expenses, in addition to having dramatically increased the price. This of course prompts the question of value for money: how many more attendees can a vendor achieve by putting Gartner (or IDC, Forrester, Yankee...) on the speakers list? Will the choice of analysts affect the conversion rates?
• The expenses figure added on by Gartner really irritates us. It's a random variable that cannot be backed up. If Gartner was an accounting firm, a method like this would have Gene's perp walk on the front page of the Journal.
  
• The logic is of course to squeeze the lemon by boosting analyst utilisation rates (Gene Hall used the words "increase leverage").
• Gartner however have reportedly capped spending to 3% per vendor (which at the present going rate represents a nice $30 million, leaving plenty of progression margin for their largest accounts) and restricted the products offered to vendors (no white papers for instance -with possible exceptions in far flung geographies though?).
  

ARmadgeddon recommendations: with the Gartner Borg having as much as 40-50% market share, the RAS marketplace is now heavily concentrated. Vendors should strive to balance their RAS portfolio. Unfortunately, other global players such as IDC or Forrester are a far cry under Gartner for product breadth and brand recognition while regional players such as Ovum still fail to achieve the brand recognition they deserver because of poor marketing. Gartner is also hard to match when it comes to user reach and influence. On the events side, the picture is more contrasted, as the Symposia are certainly the largest but maybe not the most relevant/insightful and certainly not the best ROI. Research quality is more subjective (or maybe not?)
Vendors should therefore have a multi-sourcing policy and use the Borg in conjunction with independent analysts on a case by case basis. They should also look at developping other influencers (such as bloggers, academia, etc...)

Links:

• This We'll Defend
• Gartner Sales policing vendor interactions with analysts
• Is Gartner subtly going pay-to-play for briefings?
• Are the Gartner analysts stretched too thin?
• Borg softens 30 minutes rule
• Borg imposes 30 minutes briefing limit
• Deal Architect on changing the influence game
  
• Should AR run Influencer Relations?

This We'll Defend

Thinking back over the last few days here at Forrester's GigaWorld conference, the most passionate conversations have been about Gartner.

Every market leader gets a hard time, and Gartner is no exception. Perhaps it's a measure of how bad things are that the troubles people complained of last year are now seen as the good old days. At the AR Council last weekend, they should have shown Jarhead.

If my account manager is like the rest, the performance of Gartner's sales function has been really affected by new policies. There's a move away from the global sales approach. I can see that Gartner has an interest in deepening its relationships with a second line of clients in organizations. Perhaps Gartner think that clients like us, who are centralizing our buying from the analysts, simply increase our power and make things harder for them. That's not our view. When our buying was fragmented, we wasted a lot of money. We used to by a lot of research, sometimes twice or three times over. We didn't have enough scale to buy more advisory seats and more time from analysts. It's only that higher quality that allows us to really show Gartner's quality inside the company. The new approach suggests that Gartner loses the ability to meet the needs of buyers outside the center if it's selling to a global buyer. As a result, it wants to break down the global sales approach.

Decentralizing sales could allow Gartner to sell directly into business units, geographies and subsiduaries. That trend will probably be strongest in enterprises, where Gartner is pushing role-based views. Gartner seems to think that the only way that most of these specialized role-based managers will be able to experience the impact of the new role-based services is if they pay themselves, and that not all central research buyers will care about the new role-based services.

Of course, decentralization will displease a lot of central research buyers. It also poses questions of how to consolidate invoices and orders globally, and of how then to target and bonus local sales staff.

All of this fits with the wider context at Gartner. John Moroney had some interesting things to say about this last month, and Duncan's post gives a flavor of John's conference call. Gartner faces high production costs in its research business and a deep challenge in sales force management. Much of the market is uncovered by Gartner's sales force, who are often remote from key, under-penetrated, market segments.

Whatever happens -- whether the sales strategy is shown to be successful or not -- it will have to be tested by Gartner and then reverted back from. After 2 or 3 years, either clients will have been convinced centrally of the value of these role-based services, or they will have been terminated. So, although the probable fate of Gartner's sales team is a partial break-up, over 3 years we expect we will see it swing back to centralization. It's the classic Gartner scenario of permanent change.

Pay to play, the PR way

Interesting article in yesterday's Sunday Times: Catfight at the 'backscratch club'

It details how a well connected PR "guru", Julia Hobsbawm, set up Editorial Intelligence (EI) and invites columnists to advise companies in return of a £1,000 pa fee and organises relationship events to make all those people connect. It doesn't get much closer to bribing...

Of course, Hobsbawm claims that "We are not selling access to journalists. Nor are we asking journalists to write puff pieces for clients.” but one would be naive to imagine that a columnist would not return a call after a "Caribbean freebies".

Ovum is floating -just about

As we announced before, Ovum has now gone through their IPO on the 10th at 190 pence. Their stock shot up to 219 on the 12th and went back to 198 on the 24th in small volumes.

Some in the industry have been speculating on what may happen next:

• A mass exodus of suddenly enriched analysts?
• An acquisition?
• Aggressive development plans, for instance in consulting?

Read also:

• 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?
• 1+1=1.2?

NEW: AR 101 feed

In response to the success of our popular AR 101 series, we've introduced a specific feed, with a number of subscription options below. Note that any input and suggestions for upcoming topics is welcome.


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AR 101 series: briefing analysts

James, Jon and Andy kindly provided quite a lot of (free) advice on how to brief IT Analysts.

Here are six simple steps to get your briefing right (tell us if we forget anything guys).

1. Synch briefings with research agendas
A good briefing should be prepared before to make sure that the information given to analysts match their research agendas and interests. This is of course easier done for one-on-one briefings (some simple filtering questions at the start help). For one-to-many briefings (not the preferred briefing for most analysts but often the most practical compromise to update analysts on announcements in a short timeframe) it is good practice to send 2-3 questions to key analysts before the call.

Read AR 101 series: the research process for more. Jon made the following remark:

• Take the time to understand research programs and assignments of the analyst firms you have in your sights, and use this information to make the correct people available to support the analysts that you meet. For example, if a firm is conducting a market analysis study, there is little point in providing a technical expert at a briefing; similarly, a brand manager will be of only limited use if a product comparison is taking place. Either of these situations may lead to the worst-case scenario of not being mentioned at all.

2. Don't give analysts a dog's dinner
Bear in mind that you may be talking to a diverse audience. Analysts fall into four categories: RAS analysts, market watchers, consulting analysts and sell-side analysts.

So, as Jon says in this great post, you need to "Make Briefings Worth It":

• "At the best of times, briefings can be dull for analysts as much as for vendors. This is often down to the fact that briefing sessions are inappropriate, badly planned or conducted."

He suggests that a good preparation is paramount:

• Only use source information that is relevant to the briefing at hand. Don’t waste anyone’s time in briefings, by slogging through irrelevant presentations that have been picked off the shelf
• Customize your message before the briefing

Analysts usually want to hear the following:

• Corporate strategy
• What are you announcing? (high-level messages AND product details)
• How is that going to fit with the strategy and go-to-market model
  
• How are you going to compete?
• How does this fit with your announcement roadmap?

And be flexible to respond to analysts prompts during briefings, do not hesitate to skip the introduction and go directly to the point. A common mistake is to explain granny how to suck eggs, for instance by lecturing numbers analysts (say from IDC) on market stats (say from Gartner/Dataquest). Andy illustrates this graphically in his post:

• "That mistake is mostly made by smaller companies, where some VP or Director of Marketing is doing his (or her) run-of-the-mill pitch that would be equally used in any sales opportunity. So they go on and on about stuff that we have heard a million times already, have zero value to an analyst, and simply waste time. It's particularly annoying if those briefings are conducted via WebEx, because the analyst cannot [...] tell the vendor to skip to slide 32 [...]"
• Vendors that do it very well [...] spend two or three minutes on chit-chat [...], then run through a few figures [...] and not more than 10 minutes after the call starts jump right into the product update, demo, or discussion.

Read also the comments Vinnie, Dean and Jon have left here on the subject. We had the following bottom-line in the same post:

• ARmadgeddon is against unnecessary analyst cruelty and agrees that vendors could do a better job at scoping briefings to better address analysts needs.

Finally, read also: AR 101 Series: Don't use a sales presentation with analysts

3. The best briefings are interactive
Do allow time for analyst feedback during briefings ; bearing in mind that there must be something in for the analyst -the analyst should not feel like she/he is giving out all his IP for free. Bear in mind that analysts need to make a living and allow budget for buying reprints or getting the analyst under retainer. When the interaction is good, your company will gain a lot.Do not let short-term tactics waste this potential by making sure that your briefings are win-wins.

As Jon writes:

• If you are able to provide an analyst and his or her company with timely, tangible value, the analyst is more likely to have something to say about your company and your products.

James made similar comments in his post Redmonk: how to brief analysts):

• So, an analyst briefing is (should) a two-way conversation (otherwise it's called a press conference).

4. Don't forget NDA's
Analysts are interested first and foremost by future strategies and roadmaps. Do balance this requirement with the need to keep your job (and those of your executives) by being careful to flag what is presented to analysts under a non-disclosure agreement. Always keep the required paperwork at hand.

Read also Ovum breaks the iPod cellphone embargo?

5. Do a dry run
As we've said before: NOBODY should be talking to analysts without going through a good AR training first. This should be a corporate policy. If you don't have the skills or the credibility to deliver it in house, get some professional help. For instance from Duncan or David (to name only some who linked to us), if you pick-up someone else, make sure that they know the European market (not like KGC).

Furthermore, AR professionals should rehearse unless they're fully confident in the speaker's capabilities. This will not make them look appear as PITA's but rather as pros who need to make sure they avoid un-necessary risks.

5. Follow-up
Finally, do make sure that AR does the follow-up and stays in the loop -possibly by recommending that executives don't give out business cards. This should not annoy the analyst if you're responsive and has the benefit of being in a position to schedule additional briefings when required and stay abreast of the analyst agenda. This brings us back to step 1!


Additional bedtime reading:

• ARmadgeddon: Ovum breaks the iPod cellphone embargo?
  
• bit blue blog: Vendor briefings: Do more with less :: Andreas Bitterer ::
• ARmadgeddon: [Monkchips:] No Time Wasters Please: On briefing industry analysts
• Jon Collins:Nothing to Declare » IT Analysis In A Cold Climate
• Comments on the following ARmadgeddon posts: Gartner limits vendor briefings to 30 minutes and Borg imposes 30mn briefing limit

[deal architect:] Credibility of Analysts

Vinnie has a special talent for finding the sweet spot and sharp comments.

In this post, [deal architect:] Credibility of Analysts, he comments on the Borg IP police: the Gartner Ombudsman blog.

They posted a lame rebuttal to the Information Week article on Analyst Credibility. The comments on that post (the Borg must be congratulated, yes congratulated, for having a real blog) are worth a read.

Carter Lusher, the HP (HPQ) AR head argues for greater separation and transparency.

Chris Carter (?) asks two penetrating questions, only to find deafening silence. Follow-on through to Vinnie's blog for more....

The Borg AR call

We were hoping that Joe, Duncan or Dave would write a take on Wednesday's Gartner call as it was really quite dull... The only really funny thing was that Pamela Miranda referred to the Miranda act, so she must have read this Gartner Watch post.

Laura McLellan, Gartner Research VP was first to speak. She covers vendor (IT providers) marketing strategies research. She started to say Gartner was not going to start to analyse AR (as the Oracle AR VP pointed out, this would be a conflict of interest) and compete with KGC.

She had an interesting take on analyst taxonomy, depicting it as an inverted triangle: on top analyst which are end users focussed (advise buyers), in the middle market watchers (who look at forecasts and trends) and on the bottom (tip) the vendor focussed analysts (advise sellers). Quite why the triangle is inverted, we don't know -there may be more user facing analysts in Gartner but in the overall analyst landscape the vendor facing analysts outnumber them by far. ARmadgeddon will be publishing an official Analyst Taxonomy soon. She then said that you need to adapt your approach to the kind of analysts. Not exactly new news but maybe a useful reminder.

She then further continued to explain grandmas (AR professionals listening into the call) how to suck eggs: one needs to segment the communication type to audience. Laura also plans to research which AR comms are effective or not and why. That would indeed make up for an interesting and more specific call.

She gave a quick round up on what analysts love most: face time, AR contact list (inc. responsibilities), announcement advance notice / pre-briefing and email opt-out.

She gave some insight on analyst psychology (gives a new meaning to analysing the analysts): they are motivated by influence and knowledge (explains the ego side) and turned off by community and reprocity (not sure what James will have to say on this).

These other points were on her charts:

• Semi-annual tours with topic managers to discuss the “bigger picture”
• Portal to find “basics” without bothering AR person
• On-line presentations and [important] transcripts
• Upcoming events calendar
• Annual executive sessions [access to the “big cheeses”]
• Opt out “push” e-mails with the news
• Access to your customer presentations

Probably worth a reminder indeed. She finished by saying what makes a good AR person: being a good relationship builder. What does the R in AR stand for again?

She gave the following good and bad for AR managers:

• GOOD: Enabler vs. roadblock, Proactive, Accountable, Responsive, Truthful, Trustworthy, Empowered, Persistent, Follows up, Management confidante, Value creator, Helpful, Relationship builder
• BAD: Defensive & suspicious, Gatekeeper (analyst = enemy), Unresponsive, Self-important (does not mix well with analysts?), Territorial, Siloed (not like Gartner then?), Roadblock, Inconsistent, Inaccurate, Don’t understand own organization, Don’t understand how analysts work, Not influential in organization supported

She finally hinted that Gartner might create a research role to look at vendor marketing.

The call then moved on to Pamela Miranda, Head of Vendor Briefings who spoke about briefings. She did not really cover the points that were on her agenda:

• How to seek analyst attendance at your events
• What’s the latest on vendor-paid travel
• Focus: The most frequently misunderstood parts of the process

Joe commented on the scheduling process here: Gartner's briefing on their briefing policy (Gartner Watch). As we've commented before, this process is lengthy and time consuming. One of the reasons that was

Read also:

• Gartner limits vendor briefings to 30 minutes
• Borg imposes 30mn briefing limit
• The replay and charts might be some day available there

AR 101 series: selling the value of AR

As we previously wrote, AR is NOT an outbound tactic: briefing analysts and expecting them to write something is called PR and does only harness a small part of the value AR can deliver. However, few AR people feel confident selling the value of AR back to other stakeholders, such as sales and marketing.

Here are a simple 5 steps guide to getting it right.

Step 1: establishing AR
AR often grows out of media relations and tend to have communication as a reporting line (this seems to be the prevalent model for small organisations). AR practitioners should seek to clearly differentiate their audience (read AR 101: Analyst vs. press) as it will impact management and stakeholders expectations.
In this post (AR 101: Measuring Analyst Relations), we lay out three models for AR:

• Outbound: pushing information out to analysts in the hope of generating reports
  
• Transactional: pulling targeted analysts into a relationship with the firm
  
• Insight: primarily using analysts to develop internal understanding and direction
  

AR professional should strive towards establishing an insight-based AR practice and align with sales and marketing rather than with comms. See Duncan's tips here.

Step 2: setting goals and measurements
Thanks to Pavlov, we know that rewards conditions behaviours: it is crucial to align AR with sales and marketing goals. In this post (AR 101: Measuring Analyst Relations), we give the following recommendations:

• AR's primary goal should be create a positive external environment for business
• Focus and attention should be given to setting up balanced metrics to measure AR not only on raw clippings and quotes but also by weighting them to reflect the importance of the analyst, by surveying all analysts and through independent perception audits.
• AR need long term objectives and can contribute positively to developing corporate strategies.

Read also ANALYST EQUITY: Share of Voice: Useful, Often Vital.

Step 3: impacting the strategy
Well executed, AR can leverage the analysts privileged position and wealth of knowledge as a competitive advantage. Do use analysts to get a sanity check and/or coach execs, balancing independent analysts (they offer better value) from those having customer insight. Do schedule message testing sessions way ahead of launches (under NDA). Do allow time for analyst feedback during briefings (bearing in mind that there must be something in for the analyst, like buying reprints or getting the analyst under retainer). Do not let short-term tactics waste this potential.

Step 4: Shaping the agenda
Having engaged proactively with analysts should give your company clues about trends you might not have spotted before. This not only gives your execs the chance of fine tuning their strategy and messages, but armed with this knowledge you should be able to also synch briefings and announcement with the analysts' research agenda. Read also AR 101 series: the research process.

Step 5: delivering to sales and marketing
There are multiple ways for AR to help marketing. Do start by making sure that AR tactics are included into the marketing plan, it should also provide for analyst deliverables (such as speaking engagement, research projects, etc...) Do plan AR tactics way ahead of product launches.

Do spend some time to explain how analysts come in the sales cycle and do raise awareness with the sales community so that they come back to AR when they hear of an analyst being consulted by the prospect or client. If you have followed step 4, you should be able to know where the analyst is coming from and what should her/his objections. You should thus be in a position to balance this with either positive research (from another firm or sometimes from the same firm) or to help sales refocusing the discussion. Remember that sales always get the kudos for wins and will try to deflect the blame for losses.
Read also Reacting to an analyst attack and Advisory analysts do impact vendor sales and make/break products.


Good selling!

Borg softens 30mn rule

In an email today, the Gartner Vendor Relations (briefing police) and Ombudsman (IP police) appear to have read ARmadgeddon's posts on briefing length:

• the 30 mn limit is now only a proposal
• they recognise the vendor briefing request process is f****d-up, as vendors commented it leads to intolerable delays
  
• analysts can extend the time if they deem it "required to obtain maximum value from the briefing"

ARmadgeddon's comment: recognising a problem is a first step to correct it, we will be monitoring Gartner's briefing process closely in the coming months.

In the meantime, there has been a lot of interesting comments on what briefings are and how long they should be, mainly here, there and there:

• We agree with the analysts that vendors need to do a better job at briefings and to avoid death-by-powerpoint. Vinnie quite rightly says that briefings should be more focused ; that pitching to analysts is quite easier than pitching to the Wall-Mart procurement team.
  
• There seem to be a consensus that 30 mn are okay for a quick update on a specific offering but does not allow enough time for wide-area-analysts (WAA, as opposed to Narrow Silo Analysts)
• Dale and others however said that restricting briefings to a mere half an hour would eliminate the discussion. James argued that this was precisely what the Borg intended ; that it is an opportunity for independent analysts.

We look forward to today's call where the Borg will share its recommendations for AR professionals, and more.

Borg imposes 30mn briefing limit

So it looks like the Borg is about to limit briefings duration: Gartner limits vendor briefings to 30 minutes.

Vinnie, Dean and Jon have good comments on this, the two sides of the argument are:

Many vendors impose a death-by-powerpoint sentence to analysts with 3 hours and 54 charts briefing. This is BAD practice (see links below). A half an hour session should thus force vendors go straight to the point an be more productive.

Analyst briefings should be interactive ; 1800 seconds does not allow much of a two-way conversation.

ARmadgeddon is against unnecessary analyst cruelty and agrees that vendors could do a better job at scoping briefings to better address analysts needs. However, 30 mn is too short to allow for an interactive conversation. The fact that this new rule comes from the Borg is not a surprise as Gartner analysts tend to be more quiet and provide significantly less feedback than independent analysts during non-paid briefings. As a side note, arranging briefings through vendor relations takes Analyst Relations Managers anywhere from 1 hour to 2 days...

POJ's wrote a nice take on this on GartnerWatch: You have the right to...
His point that Gartner analysts would struggle to explain anything in less than 40 mn is spot on.


More from ARmadgeddon on analyst briefings:

AR 101: Jon Collins on briefing analysts

[Monkchips:] No Time Wasters Please: On briefing industry analysts

Redmonk: how to brief analysts

Will the Borg be dis-intermediated?

Interesting and thought provoking post by former analyst Dana Gardner on why blogs and the information abundance is a threat to Gartner:

Self-IT analysis is the wave of the future (Dana Gardner, ZDNet.com)

His analysis is quite similar to Jame's (read this).

There's of course the reverse argument: too much information kills information, there's a role for someone to package it for users and make money in the process (read this post on Vinnie's blog).

We however remain sceptical about Gartner's consulting business (would be nice to hear from the chaps at Accenture, Deloitte, Cap, PWC, IBM, E&Y if they ever lost a deal to Gartner?)

The Governor, ancient Iraq and Gartner

Like a modern David, James has decided to take on the Borg Goliath:

• James Governor's MonkChips: Why Open Source Analysis Will Grow: Learning from The Sumerians

In this post (and before), he argues the cuneiform writing is on the wall for Gartner Borg:

• Why would vendors continue to pay a ransom to a gatekeeper to enterprise purchasing?
• They're under pressure to disclose their "methodologies" and clients
• He quotes Jonathan Schwartz, COO (SUNW), as not being happy with Gartner (IT)
  

His predication is that open source research will form a new ecosystem and make Gartner obsolete, just like an old mainframe. Vinnie says it's like Gulliver and the Lilliputs.

Joe has already posted an analysis on Gartner Watch:

• (From: Monkchips) Gartner is like a mainframe in 1979. Ripe for deconstruction.

ARmadgeddon's take: commoditisation of research is an inescapable trend and presents a serious threat to traditional content-based IT Analyst Research firms such as Gartner. However, open source research faces challenges before it can be seen as a credible alternative:

• Reputation/credibility lies with individual analysts or firms (and not with the "ecosystem")
  **An AR professional emailed us that the main issue with "one-man-boutiques" for them was the lack of branding/the confusion in the marketplace.
  
• The output of independent analysts varies considerably as it is not like a single source code (although the emergence of aggregators such as IT-Analysis.com is a major step forward). **As Richard Stiennon puts it in the comments, "open source research would imply a wikipedia like collaboration on market research, [...] the results however would be FREE to use by anyone." (see comments for more)**
  
• Consulting to users remains the exception for independent analysts and it is not proven can the open source model can be financially viable for them. **Vendors value this user insight more than everything else, this is however currently the priviledge of Gartner, Forrester, Ovum, etc....**

**27/2 edits**

Odd bods

Who are the oddest analysts around?

Cast your vote there:
James Governor's MonkChips: Who is the most off the wall industry analyst in the business?

Vinnie on the Gartner Offshore Application Services Magic Quadrant

Interesting take from Vinnie on this Borg Manic Quadrant:
deal architect : Gartner MQ on Offshore Application Services

Is there an afterlife for analysts?

Duncan asked yesterday Why vendors hire analysts.

The underlying question lies around analysts career development.

You see, analysts do have somewhat atypical jobs -which may explain why they are often peculiar themselves. They come from various backgrounds, either from IT departments, IT vendors (most frequent case) and less frequently from resellers or other channel partners, often ticking well over 15 years of experience.
Their analyst job is often fascinating, both intellectually and for they have a privileged industry vantage point -sitting between so many constituencies (vendors, users, channel, etc...)

So it's not a surprise if analysts tend to stick around and progress naturally within research firms, however even in Gartner there can be only so many VP's... Creating their own consultancy can then appear as an attractive option. Duncan describes these market dynamics here: From the 'water cycle' to the 'analyst cycle'.

Another option is to move into AR. As James and Duncan point out, running AR for an IT vendor is sometimes a rather brutal landing. We also had some comments from analysts on being dealt with by ex-analysts (this may cause some clash of egos), on the other hand ex-analysts are well positionned to sell the value of AR to the business. Another option can be to work for or create an AR consultancy (KGC, LighthouseAR are run by former analysts) -but it's quite a niche market...

Frost demands cash for press release

In ARmadgeddon: AR 101: Analysts and press quotes
we explained that analysts don't charge for quotes. However, itis worth adding a postscript: one reader has pointed out that there's one case where vendors do pay for a press release. This is what she writes:

"I just wanted make a comment say that you have to be either green or naive to take this idea of paying for quotes seriously, or even think if could happen here in the States but not in Europe. However, a comment about Frost is on the money: they told us that we had won an award, so we said 'great'. They replied, if you want to tell people who have won, then you need to pay us for the package -- which included a trophy, a photo opp and a press release. We said, no keep the trophy: we'll just spread the news about the award ourselves. They told us that they would only anounce the award if we paid for it."

We'd love to hear about other experiences like this.

IDC misses forecast by 1900%

Interesting read on IDC un-prediction in today's El Reg:

Le Misancalculation: A one act Itanium tragedy by IDC (The Register 17/02/06)

Extracts:
"As the artist's rendering points out, IDC does not have a sparkling track record where Itanium sales prediction are concerned. In fact, its 2004 prediction was 1,900 per cent above the actual sales mark. Some analyst firms can survive on results like that, and some can't."
"IDC never explores these issues. Instead, it relies on flaky data and embarrassing conclusions to create a study that could outdo its 2004 effort - a feat we thought impossible."

WOW, this seems to be a hard one to get away from...

AR 101 series: Analysts and press quotes

David published Tuesday this most post after Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWatcher wrote that vendors pay analysts for quotes:

• Analyst Insight: Do analysts charge for press release quotes?

Quotes for hire, interesting concept...

We obviously agree with David that this would be utterly un-ethical, but it's important to put the record straight:

We've never, ever, heard of anyone asking taking payment for quotes. We are very keen to hear if Tom can substantiate his allegations. We bet he can't and thus should retract.

PS (20/02/06): David in fact confused quotes and awards, which Frost & Sullivan charges for. Still not really ethical but not the same as charging for quotes.

This brings us to the subject of this AR 101: how can you leverage analysts in the media?

Analysts are, often rightly, viewed as thought leaders. Reporters value their insight, they are an invaluable ally to quickly nail down the issues around a topic and provide quotable material -all under tight deadlines. Journalists don't have the depth and experience of analysts, so a little help is welcome (an AR manager was heard saying recently that he believed the average VNU reporter age to be under 25...). So it's not a surprise that trade press often features analyst quotes.It's a good deal for analysts, they get exposure and it feeds their demanding ego. Some firms reward analysts for speaking to journalists, META was an example. This can lead to quote-happy analysts, some IDC analysts are particularly prolific as they produce so many cuts of the same data that every vendor can be a leader somewhere (read Give 'em all something - we need to sell reprints). Of course, too much goodness eventually hurts the analyst credibility...

So, how can AR managers leverage analysts to help their employer's profile in the media?

The most frequent tactics are:

• To include analysts quotes in press releases. This is subject to approval, Gartner and IDC have formal processes ; Gartner and AMR only allow quotes from published material (but not FirstTakes or Symposium presentations).


• To include analysts contact details in the press package sent to journalists, possibly with quotes.

PS (20/02/06): we received comments from AR managers and analysts saying those practices were highly ineffective -some journalists tend to deliberately ignore proposed quotes and go for "really independent" quotes. In other terms "shoveling quotes down a journo's throat will backfire and damage both vendor and analyst reputations." We would be interested in your comments on this...

Some additional tips:

• Depending on the relationship the AR manager has with them, independent analysts will often be quite willing to provide quotes and be contacted by reporters.


• It goes without saying that good AR managers will make sure that the analyst is briefed before reporters get the press release and that they have a (positive) opinion on the subject and contribute to the debate.


• Good AR managers will also ensure that they use analysts that are consistent between what they tell reporters and what they publish.


• Finally, some analysts are better at this game than others. A pedantic analyst speaking in 80 words sentences may not provide good quotable material to journalist and may even be mis-interpreted.

Other post in the AR 101 series:

• AR 101 series: Analyst vs. press (Analyst Insight)


• AR 101 series: the research process

Ovum to IPO, Forrester loses sales VP

Dave reports here that Ovum is about to float:
Analyst Insight: Ovum announces float

This was in the air for a long time but it's official now. We heard they stopped recruiting analysts/expanding because of this upcoming float, which is somewhat strange.
Anyway, the Ovumites are about to make some paper money as they all will get some shares -which is probably good as Ovum as a reputation for not paying them very well....

The other news today is that Forrester is loosing Tim Royston-Webb, its EMEA Sales VP (ex. Giga before), to Datamonitor. Both have a reputation of being pretty harmless at selling to vendors (check C'mon guys, sell to us!), so we think this change of ship is going to make no difference whatsoever.

The press release can be found in Tekrati:
Datamonitor Appoints Tim Royston-Webb as Managing Director, Technology Global

C'mon guys, can't you write-up a little the stories instead of just reprinting what you've read elsewhere?

KCG oppose, and offer, share of voice analysis

Our friends at KCG have us modestly confused. An article in their newsletter is titled Under the Influence: Five Reasons to Worry About "Share of Voice" Metrics.

Stephen explains that "we see most of our '“competition'” nowadays coming from PR firms. In attempting to transpose their typical volumetric 'Share of Voice'” measurement systems from the media business to the analyst influence business they regularly do our function a grave disservice."

In essence, he feels the key weaknesses of the share of voice approach are:

1. It is mistaken to measure share of voice inside firms; instead, track your top ten analysts.
2. They mistakenly measure the media: instead search research, which is essential.
3. Searching in the same way will produce different results at different firms; each firm needs to be searched differently to produce results that are consistent.
4. Searching on company name doesn't work; use key words.
5. Share of voice analysis does not only analyze quotes.

The criticism seems over-blown, because KCG actually sells share of voice analysis itself, what it calls 'Coverage Metrics', and so do most of its competitor PR agencies and the AR consultancies. These studies also measure volume, even if they eliminate the media and most analysts from consideration. The fact that KCG itself supplies share of voice studies is not the only clue that those metrics can be useful.

1. Sometimes it is appropriate to target firms and not only the key analysts. Much of the research about our firm is co-authored by a team of analysts. Following only one would be mistaken. It als would not fit the global spread of our business. We've learnt that analysts at the same firm but in other countries do not display the same preferences, and we need to get a top-level picture of the whole coverage by each firm, not just one who knows us best and is normally the most favorable. Even KCG stresses that its metrics "Measure coverage by target firm or target analyst list."
   
2. To not track analysts in the media would be mad. Analysts have a huge impact on the media and their influence is reflected differently in the media from in their research. To ignore the media is lazy and woud get us killed internally. When PR and sales come back with negative media clippings, how can we say they should not be tracked?
3. Searching is not that hard. I can recommend cut and paste: when I have the search right at a firm, I paste the search term into the back of the Excel sheet that our intern uses when she does the searches. It's very easy to be consistent if you think about it.
4. Searching on company name can work if you and your key competitors are in the same industries. Yes, if you're in many businesses you need one or more key words to reduce the number of results. But that's not hard. Use the cut and paste tip I mentioned above.
5. Quotes and share of voice are different things, but doesn't mean that only one of them can be useful. If my company is mentioned more in analyst research, or by analysts in the media, that's normally a better thing than being mentioned otherwise. Of course, it's also important to track quotes (although that means looking at the media, and breaking one of the KCG's commandments) but we do that by hand in a separate analysis.

In short, share of voice metrics are very useful and, honestly, if they were not then KCG and its competitors would not sell them. I am sure that KCG has a point that some PR agencies get it wrong at times: but if KCG is telling its clients to not track the media, then they will also be getting it wrong in the eyes of some clients, whose customers follow the media.

More reactions to the Information Week Credibility of Analysts article

Interesting take on InformationWeek's Credibility of analysts really bland article from Mike Rothman on his pseudo-blog (he does not allow comments):

• Educated end users need to know the context of a report (is it sponsored or not?) and treat the information accordingly.
  
• Having an analyst participate in vendor web casts, etc. is doing a service to the user community. Any analyst says a vendor's stuff is great on a own web cast is an idiot.
  
• There was no substantiation of the "small vendors only get covered if they are clients" claim.
  

IW had a great opportunity to educate their readers on how and when analysts can add value. Instead, they focused on old rumors and innuendo of bias. IW, if you are going to go on a witch hunt, you better find some witches. They are out there, and exposing clear instances of bias would have been interesting. They should have used the space to show clear examples of bias. That would have been interesting.

Duncan also commented on the same subject: ANALYST EQUITY: Research suggests Karma beats conspiracy:

• In outline form, Aberdeen's story is the same as in every Greek tragedy: pride; error; downfall; insight. Balancing between users and vendors is a difficult and dangerous job: few succeed for obvious reasons. As the Italians say, "He who serves two masters must lie to one of them."
• So we think that InformationWeek is right to point out the tensions; and we think that most analyst firms that try to serve both buyers and sellers do so at their peril. However, we also think that buyers and vendors both wise up to that reality quickly.

The Credibility Of Analysts [InformationWeek "blog"]

Larry Greenemeier from InformationWeek is running an interesting poll on the Credibility Of Analysts.

He plans to publish the results on the 6th of February.

Although is blog is not a real blog, it raises interesting issues, like why does the Borg not put products they place in its Gartner Magic Quadrant to the test.

Selected quotes:

"an analyst industry that's tapped into an almost desperate need that businesses have to stay on top of emerging technology and a community of IT vendors even more desperate to make the sale"

"IT vendors and their customers both became beholden to the big analyst firms"

"The reluctance that vendors and end users have in publicly questioning analyst firms tells us all we need to know about the clout that these firms have"

Making it up While Drinking

Amidst rumours of a Bloor sell-out by the Justin gang, the analyst cycle is in full motion in the UK, with independent analysts talking of getting together –some have obviously read this post talking about a federation against the Borg.
This industry warming up, evaporation and condensation into new firm seems to be at Quocirca’s expense –who are actively recruiting new analysts to make up for the departure of Dale Vile and Jon Collins.

This brings us to today’s news: the same Jon is joining MWD, MWD (formed by the two ex-Ovum Neils –Ward-Dutton and Macehiter) is partnering with Freeform Dynamics (itself founded by the two Viles –Dale and Helen) and Influencer50 (an agency trying to help vendors influencing the influencers –a conflict of interest here?).
If you thought this was complicated, James announced here that he’ll be partnering with the two Viles… Menage a trois or swingers club?

ARmadgeddon’s analysis: the re-combination of free-spinning stratospheric analysts creates a confusing picture but when the dust settles it will precipitate into an articulated and complementary competitor for Gartner (IT) as the established competitors choose to remain in their cosy niche -IDC, Forrester (FORR), prepare for IPO -Ovum, or stay confined to their region –Experton (.5 probability).