People on the Move in the Analyst Ecosystem – Annemiek Hamelinck to lead Waggener Edstrom’s Global AR Practice

Annemiek Hamelinck’s promotion to SVP to head up WaggEd’s new worldwide AR practice is well deserved. She has been thinking about how AR fits into the agency mix for a long time as demonstrated by SageCircle’s video interview with her in What do PR agencies bring to the table for AR? See below for the press release about the new Global Analyst Relations Practice and Annemiek’s new role.

Please join us in congratulating Annemiek and wishing her great success in her new position.

 

 

 

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Are you or someone you know on the move? Please let us know and we’ll post the news in future editions of People on the Move. Send us the information to info [at] sagecircle dot com. 

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Waggener Edstrom Worldwide Names Global Analyst Relations Practice Lead
Based In London, Annemiek Hamelinck Will Head Global Team Of Over 45 AR Specialists

LONDON — 7 Oct 2009 — Global multiservice communications agency Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE) today announced it has formalized its Global Analyst Relations (AR) Practice, under Annemiek Hamelinck, senior vice president based in WE’s London office. The agency has been conducting analyst relations consulting services on behalf of its global clients for more than a decade. With Hamelinck’s leadership, the practice will offer a more structured and streamlined AR services offering that maps to the increasingly complex business demands of WE’s client base.

Hamelinck has worked in technology communications since 1994, in three continents and on both consumer and enterprise accounts, from early-stage companies to some of the largest technology vendors in the industry including Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Nokia. Since joining WE, Hamelinck has headed up the Microsoft AR account,

People on the Move in the Analyst Ecosystem

Here are some of the changes we have seen in the Analyst Ecosystem. Please join us in congratulating each person and wishing them great success in their new position. 

• Jesse Freund (Twitter) has joined Cisco’s AR team
• Jonathan Yarmis (Twitter) has joined Ovum/Datamonitor as Research Fellow covering Disruptive Technologies
• Butler Group and Datamonitor analysts in the Analyst Twitter Directory have had their affiliation changed to Ovum
• Bill Trippe (Twitter) was promoted to VP, Content Strategies, at Gilbane Group

Are you or people you know on the move? Please let us know and we’ll post the news in future editions of People on the Move in the Analyst Ecosystem. Send the information to info [at] sagecircle dot com.

Highly recommended – Participating in the Gartner Quarterly AR Call on September 17 and 18

The topic we hear analyst relations (AR) professionals and other vendor staff talk the most about is Gartner. There is always something brewing about the Gartnerians’ business model, research methodology, product management and policies that gets under the skin of AR pros around the globe. While there is widespread feeling in the AR community that Gartner does not listen to us, we think that a productive use of an hour is participating in the Gartner Quarterly AR Call and telling the Gartner executives exactly what is on your mind. With a variety of GVPs and VPs participating, we think that AR pros should give these executives the benefit of the doubt that they will listen to well reasoned observations with positive suggestions about how to correct the situation.

—- Text from Gartner’s email —-

Dear Colleague:Mark your calendar for Thursday, September 17, or Friday, September 18, to participate in the Q3 Gartner Analyst Relations Webinar and Teleconference.With Gartner Symposium ITxpo season almost upon us, and with many of the Gartner AR community members attending, we’re excited to bring you a personalized “heads-up” on what to expect. Mike Anderson and Sue Landry, both from the Gartner Research team responsible for Fall Symposium 2009 agenda planning, will preview

Current Analysis experiences layoffs

SageCircle has received credible intelligence that Current Analysis has  initiated a job action resulting in analyst lay offs. We will continue to provide updates as we learn new information.
.

Update: 9/3/09 5:56 am PT -Initial post. Sent request for confirmation to Current Analysis’ press office 

Update: 9/3/09 6:14 am PT – Initial analyst added to list

Update: 9/3/09 6:51 am PT – Official statement from Current Analysis posted

Of course, layoffs impact real people with families and obligations. Often AR people are genuinely friendly with the analysts they work with and this sort of news can be a shock. Unfortunately for AR professionals, analyst firm layoffs also raise important issues that need to be addressed ASAP no matter how much sympathy they feel for the analysts caught in the layoffs.

Related reports and observations

To be added

Current Analysis  Official Statement

From: Spinelli, Natalie
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 6:46 AM

We did make some changes to the structure of our services and we are creating some new services, but NO services or coverage areas were eliminated. Details of the new organization, service

IDC institutes a 5% across-the-board pay cut for US-based analysts

SageCircle has received credible reports that on September 1, 2009, IDC CEO Kirk Campbell sent an email to all US-based analysts about changes to the compensation plan. Salaries and the bonus pool were cut 5%. In addition, the bonus plan for next fiscal year was significantly changed. 

SageCircle clients have already received a SageFlash with additional detail about the news, analysis of the implications, and recommendations. In addition, Advisory clients were encouraged to schedule inquiries to discuss how to apply the recommendations in the SageFlash to their specific situation.

Bottom Line: While Forrester and Gartner both reported reduced

Ovum-Datamonitor Restructuring: Sufficient Critical Mass to Take on the “Big Two”?

On August 11th Datamonitor announced a major restructuring of its various analyst brands into a cleaner, more focused framework.

 First a quick recap – Early in 2005 Datamonitor acquired the Butler Group. In parallel, Ovum had started on the M&A path with the acquisition of RHK in mid-2005 followed by Summit Strategies and Orbys after its early 2006 IPO. Then Datamonitor acquired Ovum in December 2006. That was followed by Informa acquiring Datamonitor in May 2007. Informa itself was the target of a failed, hostile takeover by UBM in June 2008. Finally, Datamonitor acquired the Brown-Wilson Group in April 2009. Complex enough for you?

 Datamonitor and Ovum kept all the acquired brands pretty much untouched for the last two and a half years with research overlap, separate sales force, unfocused marketing, and so on. This created a jumble of brands that that did not seem to have any synergy or heft to compete effectively with Forrester and Gartner. In contrast, Forrester (Giga, JupiterResearch) and Gartner (META Group) both absorbed their major acquisitions of this decade relatively quickly and effectively.

 SageCircle was given a background briefing in mid-June by the Datamonitor CEO and Ovum Managing Director Mark Meek and this week by David Mitchell, Ovum’s SVP, IT Research. While still a bit of a work in progress, the reorganization shows real promise to shake up the analyst market.

 The new lineup is going to have three brands – Datamonitor, Ovum and Orbys. Each will have a much more focused client base and research portfolio. Datamonitor will focus on business information, Ovum on enterprise IT and telecommunications, and Orbys on sourcing. This will permit each of the new units to develop sufficient critical mass to be more competitive and attractive to potential clients whether enterprises or vendors. The Butler Group brand will continue for a short period in association with certain conferences much as GigaWorld continued after Forrester retired the Giga brand.

Sales & Marketing

However, it is not just bringing the analysts together and rationalizing the research ownership that makes this an interesting move. Part of the problem Datamonitor, Ovum, and the other brands have had in the last

Forrester 2Q 09 earnings part 2 – Client Group breakdown from 10-Q

Vendor AR teams find it useful to understand the size and nature of an analyst firm’s clients when they are trying to decide if that firm has direct influence on their sales. Analyst firms whose clients are primarily vendors have little direct impact on sales deals because they are not advising IT managers and other technology buyers. Those firms with a significant contract value with enterprises can have a dramatic impact on sales especially through ad hoc, phone-based inquiry (see Don’t discount the business value of analysts’ 350,000+ phone-based inquiries with end-user clients) and signature product or market research (e.g., Magic Quadrant and Wave).

In its SEC Form 10-Q, Forrester Research provided some details into its client base. While not perfectly transparent, it does provide interesting insights. The filing reports the revenue breakdown by the three Client Groups, which have their own dedicated sales and analyst teams. There is also an “Other” category which consists “primarily of sponsorships and event tickets.”

As the table illustrates, 40% of its revenues in the first half of 2009 came from its IT Client Group, which SageCircle interprets as “end users” at enterprises. This is a critical community for many technology and telecommunications vendors as these are often the primary buyers of technology, especially IT infrastructure (e.g., servers, storage, systems integration consulting, enterprise applications, et cetera).

The 29% for the TI Client Group, focused on vendors, represent analysts who primarily advise vendors –although they can advise end users through so-called courtesy views and inquiries – and thus do not have a direct impact on active sales deals. The “Other” segment, the events business, does not have an analyst team so it does not have a direct impact on active sales deals.

So does this mean less than half of Forrester’s clients are those prime IT buyers that vendors prize? Not necessarily.

The M&S Client Group, which is focused on

Gartner Q2 2009 earnings

This analysis does not look at areas of interest to investors, but seeks to pull out insights that are relevant to clients and prospects of the “Big Two” advisory analyst firms as well as communications and IT vendor analyst relations (AR) teams. 

Gartner, Inc.  (NYSE:IT) announced its Q2 2009 earnings on August 4, 2009. See the end of the blog post for a summary and link to the press release.

In general, Gartner’s results were much as expected. All statistics are year-over-year and are FX neutral unless noted. Revenues were down 16%. Events took a huge hit (down 61% or $34.2m) due to cancelation of conferences, enterprise travel freezes that cut ticket sales, and vendors cutting sponsorships. Spring Symposium is normally scheduled in Q2 so its cancelation was a major factor in the Events revenue plunge from the prior year. Consulting was down in revenues (21%). However, the Contract Optimization Service continues to be bright spot in the Consulting portfolio. Research revenue was only down 1% and Research contract value decreased 3%.

Cash was down nearly $100m from prior year mainly because Gartner paid down some long term debt. However, it still has $97m in cash and a $250m in available credit, which should give it the necessary resources to maintain its business as well as conduct M&A activity. On the M&A front, CEO Hall maintained the position that M&A opportunities are being constantly evaluated, but unlike Forrester, who mentioned it was actively evaluating potential deals, he provided no color to that remark.

Pricing — There was little discussion or few questions about pricing. As always, CEO Hall mentioned that Gartner is maintaining its pricing discipline. When asked by a financial analyst about price increases, Hall said that the 2009 price increase – yes Gartner did a price increase in a recession – was at the lower end of the range for price increases and that clients were fine with it. He indicated this lack of push back was due to Gartner doing a good job of communicating the value of the Gartner service so that cost is less of an issue. This is consistent with what we hear from our clients who tell us Gartner is not giving ground on pricing, even during a recession.

Client Retention and New Clients — In Q2 client retention was 77%, continuing the typical decrease in clients during a recession. Gartner’s primary sources of non-renewals are technology vendors with the battered and consolidating financial industries also seeing fewer renewals. Forrester in its earnings call last week said non-renewals were mostly small vendors. Wallet retention was 86% reflecting spending decreases by vendors and end users who were keeping spending flat.

Gartner picked up 305 enterprise clients during the quarter. This is a very relevant number for

Forrester Research Q2 2009 earnings

This analysis does not look at areas of interest to investors, but seeks to pull out insights that are relevant to clients and prospects of Forrester Research, the number two advisory analyst firm, as well as communications and IT vendor analyst relations (AR) teams. 

Forrester Research (NASDAQ: FORR) reported its Q2 2009 earnings on July 30, 2009. See the end of the blog entry for a summary and link to the press release. 

This post is part one of two parts when it comes to an analysis of the Forrester Q2 earnings. This is because the 10-Q, which comes out within two weeks of the earnings call, has more detail than the currently available 8-K and the earnings call.

Forrester’s acquisition of JupiterResearch was made in Q3 2008 which makes Q2 year-over-year comparisons not entirely relevant for our purposes. As a consequence, we will be checking sequential quarter comparisons because they will show the trends in this downturn and be more informative for AR and research clients.

Q2 revenues were down 3% year-over-year to $61.6m, about what guidance predicted. Cash and short term investments were $239.4m, up approximately $26m year-over-year and $13.6m over Q1.

As expected, consulting (called Advisory by Forrester for financial reports) and events revenues were down which is typical during a recession. Consulting was down 8%. Forrester did not give numbers, but said Events did meet the reduced expectations in terms of revenue, overall was profitable and even saw one event, Customer Experience Forum 2009, sell out.

There was a decrease of 92 total clients from Q1 to 2,493 (150 total decline since year end 2008). Forrester stated these were mostly

Manufacturing and Supply Chain veteran David Boulanger joins Frost & Sullivan – Analyst Ecosystem News

David Boulanger is focused on bringing Frost & Sullivan’s global Industry resources and T.E.A.M. approach to Industrial Automation and Process Division customers with growth-oriented challenges.

A 20-year veteran in Manufacturing and Supply Chain, Mr. Boulanger was formerly an Industry Analyst with AMR Research.

Please join us in congratulating David and wishing him great success in his new position.

 

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Are you or someone you know on the move? Please let us know and we’ll post the news in future editions of People on the Move (AR professionals) or Analyst Ecosystem News (analysts). Send us the information to info [at] sagecircle dot com.

Detail on Mr. Boulanger

Mr. David Boulanger is

Gartner, Inc. 2Q 2009 earnings call is scheduled – will it continue to add enterprise clients?

Gartner, Inc.  (NYSE:IT) announced that its earnings conference call will be on August 4th, Tuesday, at 10:00 a.m. ET. The earnings call is a webcast that you can find on Gartner’s investor relations webpage. This earnings call happens the week after Forrester’s Q2 call.

This earnings call should provide critical insight into whether enterprise technology buyers are changing their advisory analyst contract purchasing behaviors. In recent recessions, IT managers (the typical tech buyer client) have, as a group, been steady in their purchases of Gartner and Forrester services (and Giga and META before they were acquired). Most of the advisory analyst firm research syndicated contract revenue volatility is due to vendors who often cut their marketing budgets steeply during recessions.  Because Gartner is not very vendor centric the earnings call information correlates closely to end user activity. 

Enterprise technology buyer purchasing patterns are important because they are an important indicator of

Forrester Research, Inc. Q2 2009 earnings call scheduled – will it continue to lose enterprise clients?

 .

Update 7/30/09 click here for an analysis of the Forrester earnings call.

.

This earnings call should be interesting in the wake of yet more analyst firm layoffs (see TowerGroup is rightsizing for a changed landscape and Listing of analyst firms who have laid off analysts in 2009).

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR)  earnings call is 11:00 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, July 30, 2009 . The earnings call is a webcast that you can find on Forrester’s investor relations webpage. This call is coming the week before Gartner’s earnings call.

SageCircle doesn’t listen to the Gartner and Forrester earnings calls with the same mindset as a financial analyst. What we listen for are clues to how the two publicly traded analyst firms are evolving

TowerGroup is rightsizing for a changed landscape

The fact that the financial services industry is changing is on the front pages of news sites and newspapers every day. Banks being closed down by regulators or acquired by other banks are shrinking the market. Other financial institutions are slamming their checkbooks shut as they try to conserve capital. This turmoil is obviously impacting technology vendors that sell software, hardware, and outsourcing to banks, insurance companies, and other financial firms. In addition to the tech vendors, this changed landscape also impacts analyst firms, especially those that focus on the financial services vertical.

A case in point is illustrated by our post TowerGroup experiences layoffs. TowerGroup specializes in the financial services vertical market so it is not surprising the market turmoil would impact it. To get the details behind the job action, SageCircle was briefed on July 14^th by Bob Egan, TowerGroup’s Global Head of Research & Chief Analyst (Twitter, bio). 

TowerGroup invested heavily in the mid-2000’s to support the rapidly growing financial services market and the tech vendors that sell into that market. This worked out well with 30% annual growth in 2006 and 2007. Even when growth tapered off in 2008 and 2009, TowerGroup was doing “ok.” However, Egan said that the anticipation of an extended recovery and a shrunken set of companies meant that TowerGroup needed to proactively rightsize its operations to reflect the changing realities of the market rather than hang onto the existing strategy too long and be forced to make more drastic cuts later.

The July layoffs were based on what research services were the most relevant to

TowerGroup experiences layoffs

SageCircle has received credible intelligence that TowerGroup has  initiated a job action resulting in analyst lay offs. We will continue to provide updates as we learn new information.

 

Update: 7/9/09 9:07 am PT -Initial post. Sent request for confirmation to TowerGroup’s press office

Update: 7/9/09 9:28 am PT – Spoke with TowerGroup’s PR agency and they are checking with Tower about the SageCircle request

Update: 7/9/09 10:01 am PT – First analyst confirmation. Added to list below.

Update: 7/9/09 11:01 am PT – Another analyst added to list

Update: 7/9/09 11:32 am PT – Two analysts added to list

Update: 7/9/09 12:12 pm PT – One analyst added to list

Update: 7/9/09 1:50 pm PT – two analysts added to list

Update: 7/13/09 9:37 am PT – one analyst added to list

Update:7/13/09 9:46 am PT – report that entire European operation closed, except one analyst

Update: 7/13/09 2:27 pm PT – response from Tower about Euro cuts 

Of course, layoffs impact real people with families and obligations. Often AR people are genuinely friendly with the analysts they work with and this sort of news can be a shock. Unfortunately for AR professionals, analyst firm layoffs also raise important issues that need to be addressed ASAP no matter how much sympathy they feel for the analysts caught in the layoffs.

Related reports and obsservations

9/13/09 2:27 pm PT – from Bob Egan, TowerGroup head of research, via Twitter: “@carterlusher We remain very strong and committed to Europe with 3 in region analysts backed by an experienced team of global analysts.”

9/13/09 9:54 am PT — How much of this reflects business issues with TowerGroup versus its owner, MasterCard? For instance, the last layoffs at IDC were mandated by across-the-board IDG cuts.

9/13/09 9:46 am PT – Credible repot that entire European operation, both analysts and sales, were laid off with exception of one analyst left in London.

TowerGroup Official Statement

None at this time. Will be added should TowerGroup decide to issue a statement.

Background

For background on why some 

Michael Piramoon has joined Cognizant’s Analyst Relations Team

Michael joins AR from Cognizant’s Field Marketing team. Michael will be supporting Banking and Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Retail, Manufacturing and Technology. 

Please join us in congratulating Michael and wishing him great success in his new position.

 

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Are you or someone you know on the move? Please let us know and we’ll post

Ovum awarded Analyst Firm of the Year by Communications Day

Ovum, the analyst and consulting firm, has been awarded the Asia-Pacific Telecom Analyst Firm of the Year by Communications Day.

Grahame Lynch, Director of CommsDay, said “The CommsDay Asia-Pacific Awards are the only awards in the region that are directly voted by Asia- Pacific telecom executives. They are, thus, a substantial peer review of excellence.” Lynch said “Ovum beat out tough competition from Gartner, the Economist Intelligence Group and Buddecomm to win the award”.

Antonio Bartolome, Ovum’s Asia-Pacific Managing Director, said, “Asia-Pacific plays a key role in Ovum’s global operations. Presence in Asia-Pacific enables us to better understand the key growth issues in one of the fastest growing technology markets – exactly where Ovum wants to be’.

“This award is a reflection of Ovum’s strong commitment to the Asian region and our local presence” said David Kennedy, Research Director at Ovum. CW Cheung, Consulting Director, received the award on behalf of the Ovum team.

The CommsDay Award winners were voted by the

IDC veteran Dan Kusnetzky joins The 451 Group – analyst ecosystem news

The 451 Group announced in a press release (see below) that analyst industry veteran and ZDnet blogger Dan Kusnetzky (bio, Twitter, blog) has joined the firm as VP of Research Operations. In addition, Dan will launch 451’s cloud computing and virtualization research coverage. This fits in well with the work Dan was doing with his ZDnet blog (which will continue) and his boutique firm Kusnetzky Group (which will be shut down).

In February 2009, The 451 Group did go through a round of layoffs that affected analysts, executives, and back office staff. However, it is not a contradiction for it to be hiring at this time as technology companies frequently lay off and hire nearly at the same time in order to change the mix of skills.

SageCircle Technique:

• Vendors that are competing in the cloud computing and virtualization markets should immediately brief Dan to ensure that he is up-to-speed during his transition to The 451
• AR teams for whom Kusnetzky is relevant, should do a refresh of their analyst lists to see if Dan’s ranking is affected by his new employer
• Frequency of future briefings should be determined based on

SageCircle AR Podcast for June 2, 2009 – GigaOM Pro; Gartner’s AR call; NDA and social media

The AR podcast is a review of the latest news and trends in the analyst ecosystem along with tips and tricks for analyst relations professionals and analyst research consumers. SageCircle strategists Dave Eckert and Carter Lusher co-host this bi-weekly program. You can find all the SageCircle podcasts on our podcast page.

Click here to listen to the podcast on your computer or visit the podcast page to download the MP3 file.  Click here to subscribe to the podcast within iTunes

SCP 2: Table of contents. Numbers in parentheses refer to minutes:seconds when the article starts within the podcast.

(00:00)  Introduction

(01:04) In this edition we look at the announcement of GigaOM Pro and the possible impacts it will have on the analyst ecosystem

(03:38) Next we will discuss the Gartner plan for better data collection

(06:32) We review some comments to our post asking if Forrester has a conflict of interest in providing advice about how Waves and Magic Quadrants

(9:20) We reply to a question about analysts respecting non-disclosure on social media

(11:08) Upcoming AR events

(12:22) End credits

Our goals for the AR Community Podcast are two-fold. The first goal is to provide an additional venue for SageCircle research that complements our existing deliverables, whether free (e.g., SageCircle blog) or client only (e.g., the Online SageContent Library, the largest and premier repository of AR best practices and downloadable tools available in the industry). The second goal is to develop real-world podcasting skills so when our clients are considering their own podcasts we have the experience (and scar tissue) to help them start podcasting without having to re-invent the wheel.

People on the Move in Analyst Relations – Jocelyn Eisenberg

Jocelyn Eisenberg  (Twitter) has joined UST Global, a California-based IT Service provider, as Director of Marketing. Joc will handle all global AR as part of her portfolio.

Please join us in congratulating Joc and wishing her great success in her new position. 

 

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Are you or someone you know on the move? Please let us know and we’ll post the news in future editions

Curtis Breville launches geniusTek.net – Analyst Ecosystem News

Curtis Breville, an alumni of Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), has launched a new firm geniusTek.net. From their website:

 

“Two-decades of industry experience and a different approach bring unique business value to both technology vendors and end-users. geniusTek brings an unmatched perspective to businesses looking to make smart choices with technology.”

 

geniusTek.net has services for both vendors and enterprise IT buyers.

Please join us in congratulating Curtis and wishing him great success with his new firm.

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Are you or someone you know launching a new analyst firm or new service within an existing firm? Please let us know and we’ll post the news in future editions of Analyst Ecosystem News. Send the information to “info [at] sagecircle dot com”.

GigaOM launches new virtual analyst network to distribute analyst research

GigaOM (see below for background on GigaOM) announced (click here and here to read the announcements) on Thursday May 28, the launch of GigaOM Pro. This new service is a virtual analyst network that will make available analyst research reports on a subscription basis. This report is based on a briefing for SageCircle by GigaOM VP of Research Michael Wolf in advance of the launch and subsequent research.

 

The new network is focused on research publishing and will not be selling retainer advisory or consulting services. If a subscriber likes the research from a particular analyst contributor they are free to contact the analyst and arrange for additional services directly from the analyst or boutique firm. 

The GigaOM analyst network will consist of analyst boutique firms and single practitioners. There is a large pool of analysts that fit that description, many of whom started in the analyst business working for one or more of the larger firms or a management consulting firm. The number of single practitioners has gone up in 2009 as many analysts laid off by existing firms have decided to launch their own practice. At the time of launch the GigaOM Pro network will consist of ten contributors with plans to add more. The lineup in the GigaOM Analyst Network:

• Dixon, Colin – TDG (IPTV, Online video)
• Gilbert, George – TechAlpha (IT infrastructure)
• Greeson, Michael – TDG (broadband)
• Happe, Rachel – The Community Roundtable (social media and enterprise applications)
• Hawley, Steve – tvstrategies (television)
• Hendrix, Phil – Institute for Mobile Markets Research (mobile)
• Sharma, Chetan –Sharma Consulting (mobile)
• Tarczon, Andy – TDG (mobile)
• Urbanski, Juergen – TechAlpha (IT infrastructure)
• Wheelock, Clint – Pike Research (cleantech)

In terms of market coverage, GigaOM Pro will launch with four domains:

1. IT infrastructure and cloud computing
2. Mobile computing
3. Consumer technology
4. Clean technology

The goal is not to compete with the existing large analyst firms like Forrester, Gartner or IDC. Rather, GigaOM is looking to create an alternative distribution model that offers a continuing stream of research reports from a portfolio of analysts at a reasonable price, initially under $100 for an annual subscription. The play is to be a market expander by seeking out a huge potential market that the current analyst firms cannot reach with their business models. This could actually help the major firms in

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) lays off analysts

SageCircle has received credible intelligence, subsequently confirmed, that EMA has  initiated a job action resulting in analyst lay offs. We will continue to provide updates as we learn new information.

• Update: 5/15/09 11:41 am PT – Sent request for confirmation to EMA’s press office
• Update: 5/15/09 12:11 pm PT – Initial post and first confirmed names added name to analyst list
• Update: 5/18.09 8:52 am PT – Official statement from EMA

Of course, layoffs impact real people with families and obligations. Often AR people are genuinely friendly with the analysts they work with and this sort of news can be a shock. Unfortunately for AR professionals, analyst firm layoffs also raise important issues that need to be addressed ASAP no matter how much sympathy they feel for the analysts caught in the layoffs.

Official Statement from EMA

Received via email on Sunday, May 17, 2009:

For several years, EMA™ has achieved strong growth, averaging 30% annually. The company has been proactive in growing the analyst team in anticipation of future demand. This has added significantly to EMA’s technical depth and overall industry outreach (particularly in advising IT organizations). However, the current economic conditions have slowed the firm’s rate of growth. As a result, EMA has taken actions to align its resources with the demand anticipated for 2009. Management came to the difficult decision to reduce the analyst staff by two positions and internal support staff by one position. These minor adjustments will ensure EMA remains financially healthy and positioned for long term growth.

Rick Sturm, CEO and Founder

Background

In addition to the analysts, EMA’s marketing

Gartner, Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings

This analysis does not look at areas of interest to investors, but seeks to pull out insights that are relevant to clients and prospects of the “Big Two” advisory analyst firms as well as communications and IT vendor analyst relations (AR) teams.

 Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT) announced its Q1 2009 earnings on May 8, 2009. See the end of the blog post for a summary and link to the press release.

In general, Gartner’s results were much as expected. All statistics are year-over-year and FX neutral unless noted. Events took a big hit (down 18%) due to cancelation of conferences, enterprise travel freezes that cut ticket sales, and vendors cutting sponsorships. Consulting was down in revenues (4%) and backlog ($86.7m 1Q09 versus $116.8m). However, Consulting modestly exceeded expectations due to popularity of the Contract Optimization Service. Research revenue grew 4% and Research contract value grew 2%. It is the Research growth that kept Gartner revenues flat rather than falling like Forrester’s.

Cash was down nearly $70m from prior year mainly because Gartner paid down some long term debt. However, it still has $70m in cash and a $250m in available credit, which should give it the necessary resources to maintain its business and conduct M&A activity. On the M&A front, CEO Gene Hall maintained the position that M&A opportunities are being constantly evaluated.

Interesting factoid: Client inquiries were up 27% in 1Q09 versus 1Q08. CEO Hall attributed that increase to enterprise clients (primarily IT managers) wanting advice on today’s tactical issues. This is consistent with our research that shows that vendors do not use client inquiry as much as they should. The implication for the vendor community is that IT managers are seeking advice on how to manage costs, which could impact ongoing sales deals and future purchasing plans.

Interesting factoid: Research reprints are approximately a $7m business for Gartner. This is why Gartner will defend its copyrights as we discussed in Vendors need to respect analyst firm copyrights.

 Pricing

As always, CEO Hall mentioned that Gartner is maintaining its pricing discipline. When pressed by two financial analysts about how competitors’ pricing initiatives are affecting Gartner’s pricing, Hall did not directly address what

Forrester Research Q1 2009 earnings

This analysis does not look at areas of interest to investors, but seeks to pull out insights that are relevant to clients and prospects of Forrester Research, the number two advisory analyst firm, as well as communications and IT vendor analyst relations (AR) teams. 

Forrester Research (NASDAQ: FORR) reported its Q1 2009 earnings on April 30, 2009. See the end of the blog entry for a summary and link to the press release. 

Q1 revenues were up 2.5% year-over-year to $56.4m, slightly above guidance. Cash and short term investments were $225.8m, up approximately $5m over Q4.

As expected, consulting and events revenues were down as is typical during a recession. Consulting was down 12%. Forrester did not give numbers, but said Events did not meet even the reduced expectations. More interesting is that the all important “deferred revenue,” which represents syndicated research contracts, was down 7%. There was also a decrease in total clients from year end 2008 by 58 to 2,585. These are relevant data points for vendors AR teams because syndicated research contracts and total clients are simple indicators of potential changes in a firm’s influence with technology buyers. The more enterprise syndicated research clients there are, the more opportunities there are for Forrester analysts to influence vendor deals. The converse is true, fewer clients means fewer IT buyers are turning to analysts for advice.

While Forrester does not break out details on its client base, CEO George Colony mentioned that the IT (information technology, aka enterprise IT managers) and TI (technology industry, aka vendors) segments were down in the quarter, offset by growth in the Marketing & Strategy area. M&S grew in part due to companies turning to Forrester for advice on how to address social media. The implication for vendor AR programs is clear – revisit your analyst lists to ensure that Forrester analysts are correctly ranked. These data points could indicate that influence in traditional IT infrastructure and enterprise applications markets is decreasing while influence in social media and Web 2.0 markets is growing.

Forrester also announced new packaging and pricing initiatives in

People on the Move in Analyst Relations – Bobby D’Arcy joins Teradata

Bobby D’Arcy  (Twitter) has joined Teradata  as Director, Third Party Influencers.

Please join us in congratulating Bobby and wishing her great success in her new position. 

 

 

 

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