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Here is wishing all our American clients and readers a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving. For our readers outside the US, you no doubt will be enjoying a few days of reduced emails and phone calls! 

Our next official post will be on Monday, November 30th.

Even in the 21^st Century with telepresence and social media, sometimes it is very useful to hit the road and meet analysts in person. Unfortunately these are expensive exercises so analyst relations (AR) teams need to be aware of the following top mistakes when it comes to road shows.

5) Not picking the right individuals to brief. Too often IT vendors waste precious time briefing analysts that have little ability to support the goals of the vendor

4) Preparing an “one size fits all” presentation rather than tailoring presentations to the individual and type of analyst firm being briefed

3) Having the wrong orientation, i.e., wanting to perform a data dump of speeds and feeds on the analyst instead of engaging in dialog and relationship building

2) Not practicing sufficiently

…and the number one worst mistake is

1) Not starting early enough. We have established roadshow preparation checklists that start eight weeks in advance of the roadshow. These checklists are set up to accomplish tasks in a less pressured environment and provide sufficient time for review and fine tuning

SageCircle Technique:

• Start early – include your roadshows for next year in the AR plan you are working on today
• Be clear about your goals for each roadshow
• Structure the roadshow to achieve those goals
• Make certain that you get the analyst you really want and not “fill in” with less relevant analysts
• Conduct phone inquiries before and after the roadshow to gather advance intelligence, manage expectations and measure success
• Ruthlessly drive value

Bottom Line: Roadshows can be incredibly useful or painful failures. There is only one way to ensure success and that is for AR to start months in advance and drive the process from beginning to end. Because roadshows for IT and telecommunications analysts are so expensive in time, money, executive bandwidth and political capital, AR teams should work to avoid these top five mistakes.

SageCircle clients can find roadshow execution checklists in the Online SageContent™ Library. We also recommend that Advisory clients schedule inquiries with a strategist to review your plan, act as a sounding board and critique content.

Reyne Quackenbush (Twitter handle) has joined the growing Analyst & Advisory Relations team at Tech Mahindra (website).  Reyne will lead the Analyst & Advisory Relations practice in North America. She will collaborate with Tech Mahindra’s Leader of the Global Analyst & Advisory Relations program, Rahul Basarkar, who is based in India as well as her counterpart, Ed Gyurko, who is based in the UK.  Tech Mahindra is a global systems integrator and business transformation consulting firm focused on the Telcom industry. For over two decades, Tech Mahindra has been the chosen transformation partner for wireline, wireless and broadband operators in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America. Majority owned by Mahindra & Mahindra, one of the Top 10 industrial houses in India, in partnership with British Telecommunications plc (BT), world’s leading communications service provider, Tech Mahindra has grown rapidly to become the 5th largest software exporter in India (NASSCOM 2009) and the first largest telecom software provider from India (Voice & Data 2009).

Please join us in congratulating Reyne 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.

Analyst Relations Manager

• Job ID: 2009-2415 (click here to apply, search on job ID)
• Location: US-VA-Sterling
• Posted Date: 11/23/2009

Overview:  The Industry Analyst Relations Manager owns and builds analyst relationships to propagate messaging, positively influencing analysts to speak and write about Neustar.

Responsibilities:

• Develops analyst plan in support of line of business and corporate goals.
• Assists in go-to-market, product launches, and vertical and geographic market growth via analyst relations activities.
• Ensures Neustar written coverage. Stays current on upcoming research agendas and coverage areas and reaches out as applicable.
• Utilizes social media to determine analyst influence, tonality and plans appropriate response.
• Innovates. Continuously seeks improvement. Stays current on best business practices. Seeks out of the box methods to improve.
• Executes on thought leadership component of AR through trend research / surveys.
• Develops metrics and reporting.
• Manages contractual relationships.
• Stays on top of analyst opinion of Neustar and analyst opinion on trends. Able to report on both to senior management.

Qualifications:

Minimum of 6 years of experience in a communications or marketing field. Will consider a sales or project manager background as well. Must have basic computer skills. Must have a college degree. AR experience a plus but not mandatory. Some knowledge of project management is a plus. Must be internet and application savvy. Knowledge of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook a must.

Hewlett-Packard

Director, U.S. Corporate Media Relations-358948 (click for more info and to apply)

• Attract, grow, motivate and maintain talent; build a skilled PR/AR team
• Improve PR/AR efficiencies through process, tools and collaboration
• Create a world-class PR/AR cost structure, operations and execution quality
• Prioritize, drive and evaluate key PR/AR strategies and programs in support of business objectives
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with media, analysts and industry leaders that are important to HP and the business

Primary Location – United States-California – Palo Alto

Job Number 358948

McAfee

Analyst Relations Director-867627 (click for more info and to apply)

The Analyst Relations Director is responsible for the entire global analyst relations function. The position is responsible for all outbound communication to the industry analyst community, inbound communication from the analyst community into McAfee and all internal communication to the company regarding industry analysts. The position must work closely with the product marketing and product management teams along with McAfee executive teams. This role will also be responsible for internal market intelligence and competitive reports based on analyst feedback and research. The ideal candidate will have security expertise and should be able to offer strategic council to the product teams on how to communicate better and get better placement on key reports.

Primary LocationUSA-CA-Santa Clara

Position Number 867627

Altimeter Group hires a head of Sales – David Stanley joins Altimeter Group as VP of Business Development and Sales.  David was formerly with ARinsights, Inc., makers of the ARchitect AR management application.  How Altimeter addressed the selling function was one of the ”Keys for Success” that SageCircle listed in the [SageFlash] Expanded Altimeter Group is neither revolutionary nor evolutionary, but very interesting because it could build a strong end user base sent to Advisory clients. If Altimeter wants to expanded beyond the vendor community, the primary client market for most analyst boutiques, then it has to invest in sales in order to close enterprise business.

HENRY Corporation expands beyond former IDCers – The HENRY Corporation announced that it will be representing Quocirca, the UK-based research and analysis firm.

From left to right,

• Jonathan Yarmis, Research Fellow, Datamonitor-Ovum
• Gideon Gartner, CEO-founder, Gartner Group and Giga Information Systems
• Carter Lusher, Strategist, SageCircle

The panel was on the future of the analyst industry. It was an honor for Carter to be included on such an august panel. The event was the formal launch of the new Datamonitor-Ovum.

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.

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

SCP 13: Table of contents. Numbers in parentheses refer to minutes:seconds when the article starts within the podcast.

[00:00]  Opening

[01:02]  News (ZL Technology/Gartner lawsuit; analyst firm hiring; Twitter Directories; HENRY Corporation expands)

[07:54]  Fact Checking Magic Quadrant Leaders Inflation Accusation

[15:53]  Does it matter how much analysts tweet?

[21:36]  Upcoming AR events

[22:44]  Closing

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.

Twitter has rolled out a new feature called “Lists” that permits any user to publish a list of Twitter handles. If someone else clicks on that list (e.g., simple example) they can easily see all the tweets from everybody on that list. Also by clicking on the “View List Page” to the right of the list title, you can see all the handles associated with that list. This new feature makes it very easy to follow a list so that you can go to it with a single click. 

It is very easy to create a list, just click on “New List” in the right hand navigation bar of your Twitter.com page; type in a title; select the Privacy status of Public or Private; and start adding handles to your list. Adding handles can be done from a simple search function, your “Following” or “Followers” list (Lists icon to right of the avatar), or from someone’s profile page. Your list will then show up in the right hand navigation bar. Lists can be broad (e.g., Gartner’s single list of all analysts) or targeted (e.g., Forrester’s multiple lists of analysts by client type).

You can find links to the analyst firm Twitter Lists on Carter’s Twitter page www.twitter.com/carterlusher. As of this blog post, seven Lists by analyst firms have been identified. If you have found other analyst firm Lists please sent a link to “info [at] sagecircle [dot] com” and we’ll add them to the list of lists.

However, there are more aspects to Twitter Lists than the ones mentioned above. SageCircle clients can set up an inquiry to get a quick tutorial on Twitter tips and tricks, which includes the use of Lists.

This new Twitter feature can be a useful tool for analyst relations (AR) teams. For instance, there could be a List for all the member of the AR team to make it easy for analysts to find all the relevant AR team members to follow. There could be lists for your company’s thought leaders or the domain experts for a particular product or market. These are all great ways to promote your colleagues or others and increase their followers, especially analysts.

What about an AR team’s analyst lists? Could they be turned into a Twitter List so that it would be easy for AR’s colleagues to find and follow relevant analysts? While simple to do, would you want to publish a list of your analysts for the entire world – including your competitors – to see? We think not and do not recommend that our clients create such analyst Twitter Lists. Unfortunately, the Privacy setting for Lists currently only provides totally Public or completely Private access so there is no way to restrict who can use your Twitter Lists. This is unfortunate as a Twitter List of analysts would make it very easy for AR’s colleagues to find the relevant analysts to follow, either directly or via the list. SageCircle has developed a workaround for this issue that we have sent to our clients in a SageInsight.

SageCircle Technique:

• Develop an AR team guideline for how to use Twitter Lists
• Train AR team members and other relevant stakeholders on the best practices for Twitter Lists
• Invite, where relevant, analysts to follow your lists
• Promote your Twitter lists in your emails to analysts, newsletters, email signature block, and so on

Bottom Line: Twitter Lists can be a very useful tool for AR teams. However, care must be taken not to provide sensitive information to competitors.

Question: Have you started using Twitter Lists? If so, what do you think?

SageCircle received an email from a reader asking whether we had seen the newsletter from a boutique analyst firm, which included a comment that Gartner has been increasing the number of Leaders on Magic Quadrants. The clear implication was that this analyst was accusing Gartner of corruption for inflating the number of Leaders in order to extract revenue from vendors in the form of analyst consulting days, research reprints, and so on. Of course, this analyst competes with Gartner for contracts and access to vendor briefings.

SageCircle has not noticed any “Leaders inflation,” but then we have not been doing any systematic, in-depth research which would be required for such an observation. We do note however that Gartner is being sued by ZL Technologies because the MQ that ZL has been listed on since 2005 still has only one (1) Leader and it’s not ZL. So I guess that Gartner gets criticized if it there are too few Leaders or too many.  The joys of being the dominate market player, everybody takes potshots at you.

The boutique analyst firm offered no proof, nor does it describe the research methodology behind the claim, so we cannot evaluate the validity of the claim.  Here are some general observations:

1. The boutique analyst firm analysts could be looking at only a few MQs relevant to their coverage and these may have been around for a number of years. Maturing markets naturally see the vendors migrate up and to the right as the market consolidates through acquisitions or failures, vendors become better at execution, and so on
2. The boutique analyst firm analysts do not notice that Leaders are not the only vendors who purchase reprints, vendors in all boxes – incredibly even vendors in the Niche box – acquire reprint rights and promote the MQs they are on. As a consequence, Gartner would not necessarily get incremental revenues because the Challengers and Visionaries might already be purchasing reprints of the Magic Quadrant
3. We don’t believe there is any “Leaders inflation”

To see if the distribution of vendors around a MQ was skewed in one direction or another, we looked up a random set of MQs just to see what the breakdown was between the various boxes.  Our example set consisted of hardware, software and services MQs mostly from 2009 (click the title to see the MQ):

.

Columns: Ldr=Leader, Cha=Challenger, Vis=Visionary, Nic=Niche.

In this unscientific selection of MQs, we detect no particular “Leader Inflation” with Leaders having 23% of the total. However, different types of MQ have different distribution with the hardware Leaders capturing 32% of the total, while software Leaders only get 17%. At the individual research note level, the Help Desk Outsourcing has 52% Leaders, while the Social Software has only 9% Leaders. So clearly there are significant differences between different slices of the data in this small sample.

What about if we were to look at the same MQ, but from different years? Again using a small and unscientific example, we see that indeed the number of Leaders on the Managed File Transfer MQ did increase from 2008 to 2009. However, the number of new vendors added overall was even greater so that Leaders experiences only 21% increase while Visionaries increased 57%.

.

To truly determine if there is some sort of skewing of vendor positioning would require an in-depth research project requiring a significant effort and data over a number of years. There would be a need to correct or account for many factors. Steps for an ongoing research project would include:

• Capturing data from all MQs over an extended period of time
• Comparing distributions by
  • Market
  • Initial release of the MQ and updates over time
• Tracking changes in the vendors listed to account for new entrants and market consolidation
• Tracking the discontinuation of MQs and for what reason
• Tracking changes in the lead analysts and contributing analysts
• Tracking evolving criteria to account for changes in position due to changes in the market
• Tracking evolving investment in and execution of analyst relations (AR) by the vendors – better AR execution can improve placement even if nothing else changes

There are unlikely to be any buyers – vendors, enterprise end users, media and so on – for this sort of research. So it is doubtful that any AR services firm or PR agency would actually invest the effort in doing the work to see if the claim about “Leaders inflation” is anything more than hot air. The lack of paying clients is also one of the reasons why nobody tries to audit the accuracy of analyst predictions and recommendations.

Bottom Line: Complaining about Gartner is a perennial topic for blogs and competing analyst firms. Rarely, if ever, do the analysts or bloggers expend the effort needed to provide solid facts and analysis to back up their claims. As a consequence, enterprise end-user clients and vendors should be skeptical about any claims about Gartner, Forrester, IDC and other large firms that are the targets of these attacks.

Question: How much would you pay to have someone audit the analyst research such as the Magic Quadrant?