What is the business value of inquiry for vendors

SageCircle promotes the use of inquiry and we have offered suggestions on various topics for both Enterprise IT research consumers and Communications and IT vendors.  In general, vendors spend far less time doing inquires than they should.  This both decreases the business value they are receiving from the analyst contract and misses some important soft [...]

Research consumer’s turn — How industry analysts can be better prepared for inquiries

For the most part the SageCircle blog concentrates how various members of the tech analyst ecosystem interact more effectively with the analysts (e.g., AR best practices and research consumer tips). This post is an experiment to give the community a chance to give a few friendly tips to the analysts.
SageCircle heavily encourages the use of [...]

For IT managers - It’s “Praise Your Vendor” Inquiry Day

Now for something completely different… offering the analysts a vendor compliment in lieu of a complaint. Advisory analysts at major firms build their opinions based more on client feedback than on research evaluations. They generally do not do lab analysis or specific competitive research.  That means that the perceptions they have of the products may be more [...]

Using inquiry… Influence the analysts’ research agenda

We have repeated stressed the importance of inquiry, both from the role of the vendor and that of the research consumer.  Obviously it can be used to obtain information as well as inform the analyst.  Another aspect of inquiry is the use of it to influence the research agenda of an analyst or a firm [...]

Potential analyst inquiry topics for IT and communications vendors

SageCircle constantly recommends that communications and IT vendors take advantage of their inquiry privileges with analysts and actively work this activity into their interactions plan.  In last Saturday’s post (click here) we encouraged startups to use inquiry and suggested some techniques that are valid for all vendors.
Inquiries are a great way to stay “top of [...]

Startups, when was the last time you did an inquiry? [Startup Saturday]

Startups agonize about buying analyst services - influenced by the myth that analysts are pay-to-play - but then underutilize what they bought. As we always say, it is what you do with the contract that gets you the benefit, not the act of writing a check.
One of the biggest crimes is not using that retainer-based [...]

Do’s about using analyst research

Last week we posted some “dont’s” about using analyst written research, so it seems appropriate to follow up with some positive actions for how to use the research and recommendations from the industry analysts.
Contrary to popular belief, IT market researchers and advisory analysts do not do either lab-based product evaluations or take an academic ivory tower [...]

Analysts don’t know? Ask them to ask around. [Inquiry]

Despite Myth #1 (The analysts know everything), there are times when clients, end users or vendors, can stump the analysts with a question. While some analysts will use a great question as a trigger to do research and come up with an answer, others distracted by deadlines or travel won’t think to pursue your issue. [...]

Will the analysts drive down IT spending? Not if you talk to them.

In Saturday’s New York Times Business Day section there was a reassuring article by Steve Lohr called Belt-Tightening, but No Collapse, Is Forecast in Technology Spending. Reassuring because the IT executives and industry analysts interviewed all indicated that there was less likelihood that IT spending was going to be slashed like during the 2001 recession. [...]

For IT managers — It’s “Praise Your Vendor” Inquiry Day

Now for something completely different… offering the analysts a vendor compliment in lieu of a complaint. Advisory analysts at major firms build their opinions based more on client feedback than on research evaluations. They generally do not do lab analysis or specific competitive research.  That means that the perceptions they have of the products may be more [...]

How to break analysts out of auto-pilot inquiry responses

Analysts who cover really popular topics can answer the same question over-and-over to the point where they go on auto-pilot. This means delivering basically the same information and advice regardless of the client’s situation. This is especially true for end-user or IT manager inquiries. Back when I was a Gartner VP & Research Fellow covering [...]

Best practices for client inquiry execution

Whether IT managers at corporate/government organizations or product managers at IT vendors, many analyst clients do not maximize the value of client inquiry because they do not approach using inquiries systematically. The best practice below does not require a lot of time, only a few minutes to write up the background e-mail, but can result [...]

Using analyst inquiry… Find out what’s heating up and what’s cooling off

One of the assets that well-connected analysts have is their many anecdotal data points gleamed from day-to-day conversations.  While not statistically valid, doing pattern analysis on these questions can reveal some interesting insights into emerging trends and issues falling off the radar screen. The problem from a research consumer point-of-view is that these data points [...]

Using analyst inquiry… Dig into press reports

There have been a number of reprints of the Associated Press story Growth of global technology spending is expected to slow in 2008 that report that the “Big 3” analyst firms (i.e., Forrester, Gartner and IDC) are forecasting reduced spending on information technology. This is potentially useful data for both IT departments and tech vendors, [...]