Lighthouse's eighth birthday

On Wednesday September 6, Lighthouse Analyst Relations will be eight years old.

We've invited our staff, board, alumni and our evil twins at Lighthouse PR to join us for dinner at Maroush, the city's leading Lebanese restaurant.

Lighthouse has a lot to celebrate of the last year, largely thanks to the high standards and forceful encouragement of our clients and board. We have upgraded our AR Intranet substantially, doubled the readership of our blog, and continued to deepen our focus on research-based targetting, measurement and training.

It's a also a little bit of a hello and goodbye party: Hugh Rittner, our client service director, has just returned from a long holiday in South America. However, at the end of next week our colleague Ivana Lazovic flys off for a month in Brazil. So, it's a great opportunity for us to catch up with each other.

If you'd like to join us, please get in touch.

What makes Lighthouse different?

On Friday morning I had an email that asked exactly what Lighthouse does, and how. It's a timely question, since I'd spent the previous evening discussing exactly that point with our board.

In a nutshell, we are a consulting and research firm which helps vendors to better allocate their analyst relations effort. Since 1998, we have been helping vendors to build their brand and win more sales recommendations from industry analysts by targeting the most influential analysts and using the right balance of methods.

We are different from other consultancies for four reasons.

1. Unlike all other consultancies, our principals and consultants have worked for all the major analyst firms, including Forrester, Gartner, GfK, IDC, META and Ovum. That means that we do understand how the research and advisory process differs at each firm, and that we don't over-emphasize any one firm. It also allows us to reverse-engineer the research process and to predict the obstacles and tactics that vendors need to anticipate.
2. Unlike one-country consultancies, Lighthouse's former analysts are on the ground in Asia/Pacific, the US, the UK and continental Europe. We are a global firm that understands how communication methods can be adapted substantially between countries. ; their local expertise can help firms to hit the ground running. Furthermore, our deep statistical analysis of unique research and survey data helps vendors to pinpoint big differences between what effective AR methods are in one region, and how they need to be different elsewhere.
3. Unlike would-be AR gurus, we think AR managers' success comes from more objective information than from individual experience and myth history. We estimate that each year we conduct more research into analysts and the analyst industry than all of our competitors combined. That allows us to sell information, not opinion, in order to encourage clients to become more self-sufficient when developing their strategies. We also track analyst firms and analysts, to help vendors to understand their different interests and influence. We develop innovative research methods that show how buyers and vendors use analysts.
4. Unlike media relations agencies, we have observed that most AR effort is wasted on analysts who don't influence buyers. Analysts who are most frequently cited by journalists tend to have lower-than-average influence on corporate technology buyers. Indeed, most analysts have no real influence on buyers and should be allocated appropriate resources. Sadly, many agencies sell hours and fill quotas, and that means that they will often prioritize analysts on whom major effort should not be extended. In practise, even AR specialists in media relations agencies have to trade with colleagues and clients whose main interest is getting quotes from any analyst. By instead focusing on analysts with impact, companies using Lighthouse's IDEAL methodology can dramatically improve their mindshare in the analyst community.

Of course, this approach doesn't suit every vendor. Most AR managers are not brave enough to use unbiased measurements or to have the strong and weak points of their AR programmes clearly indicated. We therefore find that a very tight segment of firms can get the most out of our approach: large multinationals with open measurement cultures that have realized the complexity of international AR.

These firms have one urgent need: to discover how to focus their AR on objective results. Because they need to show real results, they need to select the best tactics, put most effort on into relationships with the most influential analysts and track the results. That is what Lighthouse helps its clients to do.

Our office at night

People who visit our London office know that we are lucky enough to be in rather a historic building, the former headquarters of the Royal Doulton ceramics empire.

The north wing, where we are, has an amazing neo-Gothic facade. To make the most of it, the exterior is now lit at night. Here's a picture.

To celebrate the building's heritage, a series of ten ceramic panels designed by different London artists have just been fixed into the bridge that runs along the south side of the building. They are quite wonderful.

The next time you are in London, do come over and take a look.

Telecoms Index August '06

Our Analyst Index is still the only regular AR share of voice measure recognised by the industry. This month our Telecom Index is all about change. Nokia's second month as number one has been challenged by Motorola and Nortel who have both raised their game and climbed onto the podium. Avaya has also put in a fantastic performance elevating itself by three places and gaining access to the fabled top ten.

Ericsson, on the other hand, has nose-dived into fourth spot and both Cisco and Vodafone have put in a disappointing performances dropping one place each.

The top 25 Telecoms Index has been equally dynamic. Qwest has stormed into the top 25 for the first time along with a interesting comeback by MCI, rising up 5 positions to take the 23rd spot despite its merger into Verizon. Greater praise must be given to AT&T who have shot up the rankings by 5 and presently occupy the number 12 spot. Unfortunately Sony Ericsson has plunged 6 places and France Telecom almost crashed out of the top 25. Research in Motion and O2 have fallen out of the August top 25.

If you'd like to be sent the top 25 of the Lighthouse Telecoms Index each month, please send an email to analysts [at] lighthousear dot com.

P.S. Spanish-reading visitors may be interested in this post, which references the Telecoms Index.

AR rises to 28% of PR spend

According to BtoBOnline, IDC has found that spending on analyst relations has risen to 28% of the spending on public relations by technology suppliers.

The report by Kate Maddox (ex-@d:tech and Advertising Age) summarises IDC's conference call on Thursday which announced the findings of its 2006 benchmarking survey with senior tech marketers. Vendors' spending on marketing is now growing at 7.5% annually; that is the highest growth gate in four years. The results are especially interesting because IDC's research seems to contradict similar research from Blackfriars, who feel that marketing spend is at a two year low.

Maddox writes that CMOs allocate "21.0% of their marketing program budget to advertising; 19.3% to events; 17.3% to marketing support and sales tools; 14.7% to direct marketing; 7.1% to PR; 5.6% to collateral; 5.0% to the Web; 4.2% to research; 2.0% to analyst relations; and 3.7% to other activities." That makes the spending on AR equal to 28.2% of the spending on public relations: the folk at Blackfriars might not disagree with that ratio, even if they do they think the pie is getting smaller.

I did some similar research in 2000 and 2002, when I compared the PR and AR spending of my clients. Back then, AR spending was just under 20% of PR spending. However, those firms probably had above-average committment to analyst relations.

Over the last few years, spending on both PR and AR has risen, largely at the expence of advertising. That makes the rise in AR even more remarkable: the communications budget has grown, but AR has grown even more quickly.

This is certainly reflected in our AR benchmarking surveys of analysts. The effort expanded on AR has continued to rise, and analysts are the first people to experience the impact of those growing resources. That means that analysts' expectations are rising, as we discussed back in March. With other things remaining equal, that means firms need to put more effort into AR to simply hold their current position.

Firefox users: upgrade to use LighthouseAR.com

One in five of the visitors to this site use Firefox. The most recent version of Firefox fixed a glitch which prevents visitors from getting the most out of www.LighthouseAR.com. Since many of the readers of that site also come here, this is is the best place to spread the news.

If you're using Firefox 1.0, the drop-down menus on www.LighthouseAR.com will appear, but cannot be clicked. In more recent version, this fault has been corrected.

Luckily most Firefox users update pretty often. But some have not. In particular, two frequent visitors (one with Tiscali UK, the other in Singapore) are using the old version.

It's easy to upgrade. On the top right hard corner of the screen is the Close button -- the one that looks a bit like [x] -- and under that is a grey circle formed by ten grey dots. Just click on that to upgrade.

Lighthouse Software Index

Here are the top ten software suppliers with the highest profile in analyst research over the last three weeks. As you may note the top five firms still have their feet firmly on the ground. Such domineering companies seem to be maintaining a great proportion of the market and not allowing much opportunity for others to gain more of an analyst interest.

Nonetheless Novell and Symantec have gained more mentions and climed 1 position up whilst Siebel have dropped to 8th position.
Although the top 10 firms in the index seem well settled, the top 25 order shows interesting movements.

Genesys and Sungard are definitely the top players of analyst index this month climbing up by an astonishing 7 positions. Cognos jumps from the 20th to the 15th position whilst Citrix and VMWare show decline. SeeBeyond has shown the greatest decline in analyst interest dropping a whooping 14 places.

New entrants in the top 25 league this month are Genesys and Business Objects.

Mercury and Veritas on the othr hand have dropped out of the top 25.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 Lighthouse Software Index each month please send an email to analysts [at] lighthousear dot com.

Lighthouse Systems Analyst Index

The Lighthouse Analyst Index is the only regular AR share of voice measure, charting the rise and fall in AR performance of the world’s leading high technology vendors.

The chart on the right hand side shows the ten systems suppliers with the highest profile in analyst research over the last six weeks. It is an extract from the Lighthouse Systems Index, one of our monthly share of voice measurements, called the Analyst Index suite. In this month’s top ten Systems Index analysts seem to have increased their focus on AMD causing AMD to move to the position number 10. Also increased analyst focus could be noticed for Intel as Intel steps to 2nd position. On the contrary, Dell moves down to the position number 3.
Even though ranking in the top ten of the analyst index appears to have only a few slight changes the top 25 list is more volatile.

Symbol and LSI both show great gains in analyst focus by entering the top twenty five. In addition Phillips, Lucent and Panasonic all three ascended by one position. The companies that lost the battle this month and fell out of the top 25 are Hitachi Data Systems and NetApp.

If you'd like to be sent the top 25 of the Lighthouse Systems Index each month, please send an email to analysts [at] lighthousear dot com.

AR institute prepares meeting, adopts new logo

The IIAR has been making steady progress over the summer. So far we have 95 people signed up on our English-language list and a further 12 in our German chapter.

This week the IIAR's interim board, of which I am one, announces the Institute's new logo. You can see it on the right hand side.

Preparations are accellerating for our meeting in Bracknell, near London's Heathrow Airport, on September 7. The meeting will review the board membership and discuss the work of four working groups lookin at topics such as training, ethics and relations with the analyst houses. While the meeting itself will start at 5 pm, working groups will meet immediately beforehand to discuss their tasks. I'll be convening the working group on training, and others will organise parallel discussions on additional topics.

Lighthouse IT Services Analyst Index

The chart on the right hand side shows the ten IT Services suppliers with the highest profile in analyst research over the last six weeks. It is an extract from the Lighthouse Services Index, one of our monthly share of voice measurements , which we call the Analyst Index service.

With just one place changing hands in the top 5, life in the upper divisions of the IT Service Index seems relatively still. Naturally, with Accenture and EDS lurking the top spots, it is hardly surprising that we see such little movement. However, gainers of analyst focus are Unisys, Deloitte and Bearing Point, ascending by 1 place, and LogicaCMG climbing up by 2 positions. More notable gainers this month are Verisign and SAIC both ascending by 3 positions.

On the contrary Equant is the only firm showing any substantial decline descending to the number 23, from position number 26.

We also keep an eye out for the companies that dropped out from our top 25 list. Astonishingly none fell out this month.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 Lighthouse Services Index each month please send an email to analysts [at] lighthousear dot com.