ABC names 'Analyst Equity' in blog guru's top 3

Joanne Jacobs, co-editor of the book Uses of Blogs, was recently interviewed by ABC's Saturday Breakfast show. Asked to name three favourite blogs, she named Analyst Equity, The Guardian's comment is free, and a leading education blog.

It's a fantastic reflection of our blog's growing readership.

You can listen to the show on the Saturday Breakfast website (the interview's two-thirds through the second part of the programme, so just click past the first half of the show) and the website also shows Joanne's blog recommendations and those of two other blogging experts, Mark Bahnisch and Nicholas Gruen.

Forrester AR guidance may illustrate risks of role-based research

Is there a risk that role-based analyst services can contradict the research process? One of META Group's weaknesses, which was a strength in the eyes of some, was the fact that its devoted alignment to its clients' preoccupations often took precedence over the research process. I'm staring to wonder if the same risk might mature in the role-based services offered by Forrester or Gartner.

It's clear that many clients of analyst firms are delighted by the development of role-based approaches, especially because of the sharp contrast between the approaches taken. Forrester and other participants in the market are taking approaches that differ from one another, which expands the choice available.

Of course, I will be interested to see how Gartner and Forrester change as they become more rooted in the role-based approach. Clients will become increasingly comfortable with analysts climbing onto 'their side of the table'. However, META Group aligned to its clients so strongly that it showed a tendency to 'overfit' the attributes of a non-random sample; its customers. Forrester and Gartner are a long way from that point, of course. Indeed, one could say that this would be a better problem to have than being marginal to clients' needs.

I am starting to see some examples of the dynamic that e certainly saw unfold at META, and which could unfold elsewhere. Their market rewarded them for overfitting, and that delight provides a material and relational force that needs to be assessed. It sets up dynamics, and imbalance, that can only be managed consciously. Happily, almost everything that analysts say to me about this risk helps me feel that role-base services services are developing the right values, culture and technique to avoid META's experience.

In a way it's little unfortunate that ARmadgeddon's recent discussion about Forrester's AR services stands outside that discussion. The issues that Forrester may encounter are general illustrations of what happens when role-based services are driven by their immediate stakeholders rather than the wider market.

In Forrester's case, by basing its research on a small sample of analysts who principally work at Forrester, its AR service can make recommendations that don't reflect the objective best interests of analyst relations managers. Forrester wants to develop some original insights into the issues of AR managers, and so it doesn't want to repeat the findings of others. But, for example, it's ineffective for to focus on Forrester analysts' stated preferences as if that's the best way to run AR. Analysts want a qualitative increase in candour and resource in analyst relations programmes, and that won't happen. Therefore the task is to identify what the priorities and trades-offs are that allow AR programmes to best meet analysts needs. One can imaging that similar tensions can build up with other role-based services, at any firm.

These comment about overfitting should not be seen as a specific criticism of the work that Forester's AR team is doing, and it should not be seen in that way. Their clients are largely delighted with the role-based services, and so they should be. However, unless role-based services use the same broad process of gathering data that analysts would normally aim to use then they will reach analysts that fit their unrepresentative sample, but may not reflect the wider realities.

Reaching analysts is the focus of our next 'Win Them Over' webinar

There are still a few places available for Thursday's webinar on planning and alignment for analyst relations. After that, the next session in Efrem Mallach's 'Win Them Over' series on analyst relations is about executing analyst relations outreach: the 'engine' in the analyst relations process.

The seminars are based on Efrem's well-known one-day course.

We'll go through everything involved in working with analysts and consultants: planning a program, publicizing it, running it, auditing its effectiveness. This session helps you to assess your program resource requirements and gives you the tools you need to firm up your program timetable. This session also involves a review of real analyst/consultant relations programs.

The timing of the webinars makes them available to most AR professionals around the world: 8 am Pacific - 11 am Eastern - 4 pm Britain - 5 pm Central Europe - 6 pm Finland, Israel.

You can book your place at www.acteva.com/go/ar/

Ovum's former CEO gets on his bike

Chris Dines, who led Ovum through its successful IPO and sale to Datamonitor, has had more time for one of his real passions -- cycling -- since leaving the firm. He is planning one big excursion this year and this time it’s for charity.

With 2000 others he is taking part in the Palace to Palace bike ride to raise funds for the Prince’s Trust. Chris has developed an increasing awareness of what the Trust does, particularly in the Technology space: Chris's former Ovum colleague Richard Holway was a founder of the Prince's Trust Technology Leadership Group. We agree that it’s really worthwhile.

He explains: "It supports youngsters from deprived backgrounds, enabling them to use their real potential. Some develop careers in the IT space, others go on to become budding entrepreneurs. We need lots more! I am raising fund offline as well as online, and will personally make a significant contribution."

If you are interested in finding out more and making a donation please go to http://www.justgiving.com/chrisdines

Always the tax-savvy accountant, Chris adds "It’s very simple and it also deals with grossing up the tax that can be reclaimed!"

Alcatel-Lucent, Foundry and Qwest gain in the Lighthouse Telecoms Index

The most high profile gainer of analyst focus in this month's edition of the Lighthouse Telecoms Index is Alcatel-Lucent. The firm appears to be expanding its operations base in multiple geographical regions including Asia, Africa and Europe. The result is reflected in excellent second quarter 2007 results and has earned the company an improvement of 6 positions in the Lighthouse Telecoms Index.

Foundry Networks, with its newly released BigIron RX-32 Ethernet switch, has also gained 6 positions. Qwest, which has deployed new optical technology in its US network has also gained 4 positions and has entered the top 25.

Brocade has shown the biggest decline this month as the firm has fallen 7 spots to the 33rd spot. This has been despite the launch of a new high performance switch and opening of a new R&D Center in Bangalore. Hopefully analysts will soon pick up these news and the resulting focus will lift the firm back.

Ericsson, which had gained 5 and 2 positions respectively in the June and July editions of the Lighthouse Telecoms Index, has dropped by 2 spots this month and is now at a still-respectable 4th spot. 3Com, which had resumed its long-term declining trend in June, has lost another 2 positions and is now out of the top 25.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Telecoms Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings, subscribe to our Spotlight service for new and interesting analyst research or register for our monthly Advisor Spotlight Webinars.

Opening up our boardroom to discuss Forrester and Gartner

One of Lighthouse's traditions is the Boardroom, a free and private off-the-record discussion for AR managers. We have been holding these discussions in San Jose every April for a few years: on Thursday, September 20 we'll start to hold boardroom discussions in London.

The topic for the invite-only discussion in September is the changing business strategies for Gartner and Forrester. Both firms have instituted price rises, re-aligned their salesforce, moved to role-based views and started identify further specific revenue opportunities in the analyst relations functions of vendors.

Generally, these changes are in the interests of AR professionals, including Lighthouse. Higher pricing by analyst firms segments the market, and pushed Gartner and Forrester out of the mid-market. That produces greater opportunities for AR managers who can identify top analysts at a range of firms. Better salespeople and role-based research seems to increase the value of analyst firms, which means AR managers are targeting and audience with increasing impact. More services for AR managers can only help, especially since AR functions in firms with one or fewer AR professionals needs greater support.

However. these changes also has potential risks. Not all client see extra value reflected in the higher prices. Some of services for AR managers are problematic; for example, Forrester's AR guidance is based partly on research that 'overfits' the needs of Forrester analysts and clients, a concern we have shared with several Forrester representatives, and so far has a partial and uneven usefulness.

Boardroom discussions are conducted using the Chatham House Rule: attendees are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of participants may be revealed.

The meeting will be held from 2.15 until 4 pm in central London, allowing plenty of time to travel to a nearby meeting of the IIAR, which starts at 4.30 pm.

If you'd like an invitation, please get in touch. Seats are limited.

September webinar spotlights IDC's reorientation

In an interactive webinar yesterday we discussed how Gartner's focus on selling individual research seats is producing new opportunities for IDC and other firms to meet the growing demand for consulting and events. IDC's striking success in growing its events business make it look more motivated than Forrester, the other major analyst firm.

For that reason, IDC will be the subject of September's "Advisor Spotlight" webinar: our monthly series which shares Lighthouse's most recent research into one leading analyst firm's research interests, customer base and international reach. It's excellent timing, allowing us to report back from discussions with IDC executives, clients and analysts attending IDC's annual ICT Forum on September 10 and 11 in Berlin. It also follows an IIAR meeting at which IDC's Steven Frantzen and Martin Hingley will speak.

As in each monthly interactive webinar, this discussion will give Lighthouse's insight into developments of the firm being discussed that month. We'll share our most recent into the firm's research interests, customer base and international reach. We'll also review the impact of this year's changes within IDC's executive team in Europe, and the firm's growing influence on end-users.

The interactive webinar will be held on Friday, September 21. Join this webinar at - 8 am Pacific - 11 am Eastern - 4 pm Britain - 5 pm Central Europe - 6 pm Finland, Israel.

Book your seat at www.acteva.com/go/ar/.

P.S. Regular participants will know we tend to time these calls for the third Thursday of each month. This call has been retimed to the Friday to avoid clashing with an IIAR meeting.

AR meet-up in Chicago, and elsewhere

I'm helping to organize an informal gathering in Chicago for people with an interest in industry analyst relations when I am passing through that city next week.

As one of the directors of the Institute for Industry Analyst Relations, I've found casual, out-of-work discussions to be highly effective: they help people with an interest in AR to network -- and help us all to better understand how the IIAR can help AR professionals. When we've organized similar discussions elsewhere in the US we've always had a high-quality discussion, even if only a handful of people make it along.

If you want to, please do join us on Wednesday August 22 at the Hyatt Regency any time from 6.30 pm. You can RSVP by calling +1 312 383 4346 or sending me an email.

If you'd like to work with others to organize an AR meet up in your locality, then get in touch.

Cognos and Autonomy join the top 25 of the Lighthouse Software Index

Information Builders, known for its business intelligence solutions, is the biggest gainer in this month's Lighthouse Software Index. The firm has formed a partnership with Blyk to deploy Information Builders' webFOCUS and iWay software solutions and has moved up 23 spots. Meanwhile, Sterling Commerce, recognized by Manufacturing Business Technology for Delivering Innovation to the Manufacturing Industry has also moved up 22 spots.

Both these firms have substantially improved their volume of reports this year, and have more positive tonality in those reports.

Electronic Arts, the giant in video game publishing industry, has gone up 21 spots.

This month the two entrants in the top 25 Software Index are Cognos and Autonomy with gains of 7 and 4 positions respectively. Cognos has been awarded the Best Product Development Team by International Stevie Awards while Autonomy has earned focus thanks to its acquisition of Zantaz and another quarter of record sales.

Deltek (-25) is firm showing the biggest decline this month as there appears to be no news for analysts to ponder on. Primavera Systems, has also dropped hard after last month's jump and is down 24 positions to 85th spot this month. Sage and webMethods (acquired by Software AG) are the two firms that have dropped out of the top 25 this month.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Software Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings, subscribe to our Spotlight service for new and interesting analyst research or register for our monthly Advisor Spotlight Webinars.

Vendors need "strong, united, universal feedback mechanism" aimed at Gartner

The latest ARmadgeddon post is an article by Bill Hopkins. I just saw it on my way out for lunch with one of Gartner's competitors - who had already been discussing the article to see if it suggests any opportunities for them.

Hopkins seems to feel that the role of analyst firms is to meet clients' needs. On the vendor side, AR is a major stakeholder. Gartner wants to build deeper relationships with other parts of the business. As a result, it's felt to be selling over the heads of key stakeholders, including AR, in order to conect to these new customers. However, the process can annoy those key stakeholders who feel that Gartner is trying to get behind them, and to map the whole environment of influence inside the firm which affects spending on Gartner's services. This an important discussion for the AR community, and it's a shame that neither ARmadgeddon nor Bill's site are open for comments (which seems to be a change of policy for ARmadgeddon).

Hopkins sees AR at the centre of this process:

"Right now, we estimate that as many as 70% of all vendors centralize analyst purchasing through AR. Trying to marginalize the role that AR has in managing and optimizing the value that a vendor gets from their relationships with analysts, let alone the research buying process, is futile and can permanently damage these relationships."

Over lunch today, my companions outlined general support for Bill's view, but with some caveats.

• They have found that very few vendors centralise their buying from analysts in AR. Some, such as Oracle, have found that effective. However, their feeling was that the percentage of buyers centralising analyst purchasing in AR is closer to 0% than to 70%. Almost everywhere, AR is an important influencer. At some firms (especially the mid-market, where most of Bill's clients are) AR, PR, business intelligence and other communcations functions often sit under the same VP of marketing, who is often the buyer of analysts' services. They have found that AR is rarely the central buyer.
• Mapping the network of influence inside a firm will often annoy AR, especially if analyst relations managers tend to pay a gatekeeping role. However, every analyst firms needs to do this to some extent, regardless of the AR managers' preferences. Often, the analyst firm's account manager will be able to understand better than the AR manager what needs to be done to help the AR manager to get corporate buy-in for services the AR manager would like the firm to buy.
• Even where the AR manager or some other central buy is the purchaser, often not they are not the primary beneficiary of the contact with the analyst firm. Sometimes, they are simply aggregating purchases funded from other units of the business. In that context, the analyst firm needs to be able to sell to the business unit where each purchasing decision is made, and not just to the single signers of the purchase order.
  

These seem reasonable comments, and one of my own occured to me: Bill seems wise in concluding it's a great idea for AR managers to develop a common mechanism to feed back to analysts. Some groups do exist (such as the IIAR, its German equal DARA and SPAR) and the relationships between those groups get steadily warmer. That's a major change in the environment from a few years ago, when Bill's firm would have ruled out such a development as a quango. The time is right for us to worth together to give the AR community a voice.

Vantelo becomes ITAnalystReports.com

Over that last few months Aaron and his friends at Vantelo have been surveying readers to find out how their service should develop, and what the best name for it would be. The result is a new name: ITAnalystReports.com.

It's a great service, but I'm going to miss the old name.

Vantelo suggested vangard and tell - and that seemed like a good name for a site pooling the guidance of advanced industry watchers. But many people like simpler names. We did some similar surveys around the time we rebranded from the one word 'Lighthouse' and added the words 'Analyst Relations' into our logo: clients told us that it helps if the name explain what the firm does.

I've been rethinking that recently by reading 'The OmniPowerful Brand', a guide written by one of the most longstanding specialists in brand naming. The book's love of concatenated Latinate syllables reflects its time: it was acceptable in the 90s (not this way). However, the basic idea is that brand names should evoke the beneficial experience of the brand.

ITAnalystReports.com certainly specifies the features, but not the benefits. For example, ITAnalystReports allows readers to comment on individual reports and develop a discussion with other readers about it: that's a potentially valuable aspect, as is the ability to see research from several analyst firms on the same topics. Of course, the ITAnalystReports name also limits the brand to IT: that might limit its ability to expand into telecoms, vertical markets and role-based research.

On price elasticity, and other things that snap

Would your business pay $427 to be able to show the dollar impact of its analyst relations program? Is that a fair price? And if you got the most comprehensive guide to analyst relations along with it, what would be a fair price?

Barbara French writes on her blog that the list price of $500 is too high for the twentieth anniversary edition of Dr. Efrem Mallach's textbook on analyst relations (it's currently available for $427 on Amazon). Armadgeddon, a poisonous blog which revels in the negative, repeats the complaint.

This large-format, hardback, 350 page book works through every element of the analyst relations process in 16 detailed chapters. Uniquely, it has a step-by-step worksheet allowing you to prove the value of analyst relations and samples plans for analyst relations programs. It is also the only book to expand analyst relations to consulting firms.

The guidance in this book will pay for itself many times over: in saved hours of efficiency, in greater AR budgets that generate more revenue, and in increasing the ability of AR to defend resources and activities that contribute to business profitability. If your analyst relations program does not think that is worth $427, then how much did you spend on coffee this year?

In fact, good guidance on AR is costly, either directly or indirectly. There's lots of bad guidance available, and the market for AR services is modest. One of the best papers we saw this year was Outsell's guide, which was just 24 pages and $295. The Care and Feeding of Industry Analysts, which is twice as long is also $295. Since Efrem has worked both as an analyst, and in AR, let's consider a few of his peers: Kevin Lucas' 11 page paper is $279, while his six pages on evaluation come in at $379. Geoff Roach and Lisa Perry's e-book is even better, and is longer at 126 pages: but it is $745.50. The much shorter, and hopelessly outdated, guide from softwareCEO is only $150 - but it dates from 2003. Maribel D. Lopez and Merv Adrian's five pages cost $379. The record goes to Forrester for four pages, also for $379. Merv's six page guide to analyst days seems a bargain, also for $379.

If you bought all of these reports (written by people with less AR insight and experience than Efrem, even collectively) you would have paid almost $3300 -- and have fewer pages for almost eight times the price of Efrem's huge book on Amazon. And you'd have to print and bind them at your own expense, and deal with a lot of duplication and contradiction.

Quite unreasonably, Tekrati compares the price of Efrem's book to AR books have been subsidized by their authors. I'm a big fan of Louis Columbus' book but, with 50 pages for around $11, he was donating the time to the industry. Bill Hopkins' book is only $50, so sales through online and physical sales can't hope to cover the cost of the time taken to transcribe Bill's course, ghostwrite the manuscript, print it, distribute the book and pay the sales channel. Luckily for Bill, his firm owns a mailing list of almost seven thousand AR managers built up over many years. Hopefully he'll be able to make some direct sales to those people. That means that Bill's book has the opportunity to get the sort of sales volume that no-other AR book can get, but to sell even 1000 or 2000 of these books will be hard. Bill's book is a mass marketing tool which reflects his firm's broad focus on the 1000 or so largest tech and telecoms firms. Efrem (and even the Forrester analysts) won't expect to sell as many single copies as Bill can: they don't have the same sales channel.

The key issue here is price elasticity: the addressable market for books and reports on analyst relations is restricted. The market has to be profitable, otherwise there is no supply. Perhaps Efrem can sell 100 copies at $427, but there's no way he could sell 1000 copies at $42.70, even if he did, he'd have the cost of printing and shipping 900 extra books to readers around the world. First, the AR community is not large. Second, how much would it cost to identify enough people to make a marketing campaign generate enough sales? If anyone can see a profitable way to reduce the price of the book, then Efrem and I are open to suggestions.

What's interesting is that neither Tekrati nor Armadgeddon complained about the price of these other reports. That's because they don't have the same deep interest in those works as they do in Efrem's book, and that's because of the far greater quality of Efrem's book. I can't blame them for wanting to pay less, but I do doubt their judgment than some other price would be more effective.

P.S. What's especially ironic is that both these blogs repeat the same joke: they jape that perhaps the book should include "a teleconference or other interactive learning experience with Dr. Mallach. Lighthouse AR should clone Dr. Mallach or at least outsource to a really good impersonator." The irony is that, in fact, the book does include "one-hour video-conference tutorial with Dr. Mallach" when bought from the publisher.

Seagate drops in the Lighthouse Systems Index

This month the Lighthouse Systems Index has 4 top positive movers who have each gained 3 positions. These firms are:
- Texas Instruments(TI) which has teamed up with Ericsson, to develop new mobile phone technology
- Nintendo which has continued to improve its position based on the amazing sales of its widely popular Wii consoles. The company has announced a tripling of its operating profit and has also raised its annual outlook.
- SanDisk which has announced some excellent financial results
- Microvision have also announced some excellent financial results and have also joined hands with Motorola to develop projector solutions for mobile applications

The troubled mobile phone chipmaker Qualcomm has also posted an improvement of 2 positions this month and has entered the top 25 of the Lighthouse Systems Index. The firm is still fighting patent disputes and faces a ban on the import of its chips in the US.

The top loser this month has been Seagate as the firm has apparently failed to win analyst focus over even with the release of its Cheetah NS Mission Critical Hard Drives. The integration of the hard drives by Xyratex will hopefully bring the company's products in better focus. Ricoh has also lost 3 positions and has dropped out of the top 25 to end up at 26th spot. The firm appears to be losing focus as the news of it acquiring IBM's Printing Systems Division is growing old.

If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Systems Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings, subscribe to our Spotlight service for new and interesting analyst research or register for our monthly Advisor Spotlight Webinars.

What's happening at Gartner? Advisor Spotlight explains

Two months ago, Gartner's stock was at the top of an amazing rally. Its stock had more than doubled, from $13.07 in June 2006 to $27.56 in June 2007. To many, that's a powerful measure of its growing dominance over the world of industry analysts.

However, not all is well in Stamford. The share price has fallen sharply since that peak: the gains of the last six months have been lost, and the fall is far greater than the recent dip suffered by NASDAQ.

In a special webinar to be held on August 16, we'll be discussing what has been pushing Gartner forward over the last year, and what challenges are dragging it down.

For the first time major competitors such as Forrester and IDC are making deeply strategic realignments. New challengers, such as the Corporate Executive Board, are also pressuring the firm.

This webinar will assess what a rapid series of changes within Gartner means for communications professionals, and how tactics to deal with the firm need to be revised accordingly.

The webinar will be held on Thursday, August 16 [at 8 am Pacific, 11 am Eastern, 4 pm UK and 5 pm European time]. To register for this webinar please visit Acteva.

Unisys jumps to third spot in the Lighthouse Services Index

The most high profile mover in this month's Services Index is Unisys. The firm has boosted its profile amongst analysts with a series of services contracts with Rabobank and City of Chicago. This coupled with some exceptional financial results has helped Unisys to quietly overtake Yahoo which had been occupying the third position in the Lighthouse Services Index for the past 4 months.

TietoEnator, the troubled Nordic IT services vendor, has also got a boost of 5 positions making it the highest gainer of analyst focus this month. However, the boost would hardly be a joy for the company as most of the news being covered by analysts is of the unexpected decline in the profits of the firm.

Keane, which has now been acquired by Caritor Inc., has also enjoyed a good month in our Services Index. The fact that the firm has been ranked amongst the Top Healthcare IT Providers in Healthcare Informatics Top 100 has helped the firm to gain 4 positions this month.

The biggest loser of analyst focus this month is BT Global Services which is now ranked at the 25th position. The fact that the firm has reported a boost of 5% in sales has still not helped the firm avert a 5 position decline in the Services Index. CGI Group has also dropped 4 positions and is now ranked at 31st spot.

Interestingly there has been no change in the membership of the Lighthouse top 25 firms: no new firm has entered the top 25 this month. If you wish to be sent the top 25 firms in Services Index each month, email us at analysts at lighthousear dot com. You can also read how we do our Analyst Index rankings.