Forrester continues to warn AR away from alignment with sales

Our concerns about the evenness of role-based research are deepened by Forrester's latest AR research AR's Graveyard: Unmet Sales Commitments. Forrester's guidance is that, because most AR teams struggle to show how they contribute to their firm's bottom line, they should focus on marketing and not attempt to support the sales function.

Our view is that this is deeply mistaken guidance. Analysts have a massive impact on sales: AR teams can influence their recommendations. Dr Efrem Mallach will explain that impact, and how to influence it, in our October 3 webinar: it's a very important training session for you if you are not 100 percent sure on the hows and why of influencing sales.

Developing the ability to support sales, and to show the results, is a key element in the potential value of analyst relations. In addition to its marketing value, AR can generate value by helping ICT solutions suppliers to leverage strategy, opinion and sales benefits from the analyst community. We call this leverage. If AR does not maximise its leverage then the value of AR will be limited. That will stunt the development of analyst relations programmes.

The Forrester paper argues that:
More than half of the industry analyst relations (AR) teams that we surveyed in April 2007 say that they commit to objectives that help the sales function. But poor sales results threaten to undermine AR's corporate contribution and its reputation. AR teams — especially new ones — should familiarize themselves with the full extent of the failure risks and their ability to overcome them before deciding whether to focus on sales. It will be their toughest assignment.

Don't rush to read it if you're already read their July paper, Tech Marketers Should Focus AR On Marketing, Not Sales, which seems to start from the same survey and reach the same conclusions:
Over half the industry analyst relations (AR) teams we surveyed in April 2007 say they commit to sales objectives even though two-thirds of them report to marketing and corporate communications departments. Poor sales results suggest this sales focus is diluting AR's marketing contribution without corresponding benefits. Given the control it has over AR, marketing should rein in sales aspirations unless AR can prove it is delivering on its toughest assignment.

In a nushell, Forrester is saying that AR people who cannot currently show how the contribute to sales should give up on. It's easier to focus on the marketing/media value of analysts, so focus on that, they say.

Of course, there's an alternative: if your struggle to show how far you're supporting sales, then there could be two reasons: either you are not measuring it or you are not supporting sales. Either way, these are problems that need to be recognised as problems with those AR programmes. Forrester is not helping its clients by reassuring them that their weaknesses are common, so they should put off recognising them. In fact, Forrester's guidance goes further, by suggesting that favourable sales outcomes, aided through influencing analysts, are not goals AR teams should aspire to. Following Forrester's advise will prevent AR teams from maximising solid, maintainable internal support.

If you cannot show how far you are supporting sales, then it's easy to start. Lighthouse can help you, either through our webinar or through other services, but you can do a lot by yourselves: get some colleagues together draw up a list of ways you can do support sales, and then identify which of those you can measure. Start on that road, even if you start with modest and simple activities. It will align your AR team to the interests of the business, and give the business a more solid basis on which to maintain and extend the AR function.

More departures at Ovum

There's trouble at t’ Ovum mill. Two of the firm's star IT research directors, Gary Barnett and Ian Wesley, have left the firm.

Gary and Ian have been absolutely central to Ovum's growth into IT analysis over the last decade. In the mid-1990s, Ovum was overwhelmingly a telecoms firm. Under Ian's leadership, the IT team there met with repeated successes. Ian has many special qualities, including firm opinions on Arsenal, and I found him to be an impressive manager of analysts as well as a exemplary analyst. That's a rare mixture. Gary is a dazzling technologist: a charming savant who built an igloo for his family one year when I visited them in New England. He justly commands great respect with his clients.

I don't know if either of their departures is a surprise. Ian hopefully has done well from the sale of Ovum (even I can't complain, as a modest Ovum shareholder). Gary's next move will be interesting. Given their mutual love of high-tech sailing, perhaps he can strike a deal with T-Systems?

Over recent months Ovum has lost much of its IT services team, a line of business that only really existed after the purchase of Holway (excepting the work Katy Ring led on ASPs). The turn over there s massive and, as anyone going to holway.com can see, even Richard Holway is back in business (why Ovum didn't think to use that domain name for itself, I don't know). However, Gary and Ian reflect a deep base of skill on the IT side, which is a longer-established core area for Ovum.

We'll be running a 'Advisor Spotlight' webinar on Datamonitor [Ovum's owner] in mid-November. Expect more news about those businesses around then.

P.S. Some bright spark has emailed in to say that Gary should hook up with RedMonk. Although Gary is part of the UK rent-a-quote group, I think he should hang out for the highest offer.

P.P.S. Datamonitor has replied, on Ovum's behalf, here.

Remember, analysts also value the relationship

Many thanks to a senior researcher in an international analyst firm for allowing me to share this comment with you: it gives a great flavour of the frustrations of many industry analysts...


Some companies have such poor AR. There is one very big vendor who is infamous in our market for having the laziest AR in existence. She never gets you interviews, she never even replies half the time. The best she ever does is send you pre-written marketing shit which you can't use. We all go behind her back to a well known expert in their company who gives us what we need or over her head to senior mgt. I thought it was just me but I compared notes with other analysts and even journalists and they all confirmed that she was rubbish and that they used similar tactics.

A senior analyst I work with over in the States reckoned he'd cracked this company because he had a mate who had joined them in a senior position - but he hit the AR wall as well. he really thought he was going to crack this vendor and he even raised our hopes and then the big thump when he hit *the wall* aka AR lady. Two weeks later she still hadn't replied to him despite the intro from a senior mgt mate... (I had to laugh though because we've all been there with her!).

Please do the industry a favour and run an AR of the year comp. I know you can't very well name and shame but may be if these big companies are never in the top 100 for AR they will get the message and do something about it. Please don't think we just moan about ARs though: when I get really good AR service I always try to tell senior mgt in the company that the AR is doing a really good job. Positive reinforcement and feedback should eventually raise standards I hope...

If you're already doing this can I please vote as I have lots of suggestions...

I think people should realise that this is a professional job and not everyone is good at it. The internal view of a member of staff - she's really nice etc etc - is not always the external view - yes she's really nice but she never ever delivers. After all we are the consumers of their services and no-one has *ever* asked me how I rate their AR. Not very customer-focused or self-aware is it?

Another tale of AR (oh I have enough to write a small novelette!): a US vendor that I deal with had this formidable AR/PR lady. We met after I complained to their CEO. Basically I had rung their office and asked to speak to their press contact and said I was writing a report and wanted to cover them. The woman at the other end of the phone said: 'no, go away' and put the phone down. I was needless to say quite offended. So I emailed the CEO and said that if they were more polite to analysts they might get more coverage, and now I knew why they were hardly known in Europe.

Enter formidable AR/PR lady. She said a marketing temp had answered the phone and thought I was trying to sell them an entry in some sort of directory and hadn't understood that I was a serious analyst (dunno whether I believe that, but take a deep breath) but that they'd had a meeting the week before at C level to talk about how they could get us to cover them more - then I ring up out of the blue and get blasted. At the time I was research director, so I was one of their top 3 targets to get attention from. She said she definitely wanted to work with me and was grateful I'd bothered to complain rather than just walk away. She delivered the goods with no fuss and over the years we worked together lots of times really well. Every time I needed info or an interview I got it, efficiently and spot on what I needed.

Then she moved companies and I stopped covering her old company because the replacement was rubbish. Nice but rubbish. Moral = just as ARs form relationships with analysts that move with them when they move jobs; so analysts do the same with ARs. That means that when ARs move there is a 'churn' opportunity and if the company isn't aware of that they could lose a lot of valuable relationships.

Another time we'll have to continue this conversation about the dark side of AR... like what some ARs are geting up to trying to convince naive analysts to cover them. Would make your hair curl! And the one about how one AR thought she had formed a good relationship with an analyst. Only to find the analyst make a pretty crude attempt to pick her up. Dedication to duty only goes so far I say. And then there's all the AR-analyst affairs... I'd like to see that on a few analyst company rulebooks - as currently you can't accept a pencil because that's corruption but there's nothing to stop you sleeping with the AR. Then there's the bullying... Oh where do we stop?

450 analyst firms get less than half their revenue from vendors

Our post on growth opportunities for competitors to Forrester and Gartner has triggered some discussion, both in our monthly 'Advisor Spotlight' webinar, another blog and on our Boardroom. In particular, there's a real discussion about how far other analyst firms have a toehold in the end-user market from which they can grow.

In the Boardroom discussion, a number of participants discussed frustrations with Gartner. Going around the table, it seemed that the more you spend with Gartner, the more frustrated you feel. The stories are generally familiar: rising contract prices, higher prices for fewer seats, increased pressure on internal market intelligence teams, and a feeling that the role-based research is less able to meet vendors' needs for research that is defined by integrated solutions, horizontal technologies or, in particular, vertical markets. Initially, the quality of role-based research is uneven as analysts without deep domain knowledge (Dataquest analysts get mentioned here) develop a role-based understanding. It was a powerful discussion, which we'll run again in six months.

In the Boardroom there was a lot of agreement about the opportunities for other firms and in particular for IDC and other firms with bases outside the English-speaking markets. In the blogosphere, however, there is some dissent.

Some observers discount the influence on technology buyers of IDC and NelsonHall. NelsonHall clearly has a major service buyers' service. Financial Insights, a long-established business, clearly has a well-established base but, as it was a pre-exisiting business bought by IDC, we cannot assume that the other Insights businesses are as well rooted. However, IDC's influence on buyers is not only through the Insights businesses. It has tens of thousands of end-user attendees at its events. Its research is widely circulated. It is the major provider of analyst firm consulting outside the English-speaking world. Even its tracker service is used by buyers: at IDC's recent Forum in Berlin I had dinner with one of the equipment buyers for a $20 billion manufacturing multinational. He told me they use IDC's data to better negotiate with competing suppliers, and to understand the components and functions of differing systems.

Many AR professionals, in an attempt to simplify the problem, like to pretend that only one, two or three analyst firms get most of their revenue from end-user organisations, and the rest get most of their revenue from vendors. That's not the case: we track around 750 analyst organisations, and over 450 analyst firms get less than half of their revenue from vendors. There are 270 firms that get less than 20% of their revenue from vendors. Of course, that leaves a similar number of firms that are largely dependent on vendors. However, it would be quite mistaken to think that other firms don't have a beachhead in the end-user community from which some can grow rapidly.

BT & Verizon get to the top 5 in the Lighthouse Telecoms Index

British Telecommunications (BT) has reached the 3rd spot for the first time in this month's Telecoms Index. With new investments in the French, Indian and Chinese markets the firm is making sure that its profitability remains on firm footings for years to come.

Verizon, which has been ranked highest in Light Reading's Carrier Scorecard, is up 2 spots this month. The firm is now ranked at the 5 position and with its FiOS services doing extremely well it would definitely be interesting to see if it can overtake AT&T in the coming months.

Analysts are also writing more about Siemens Communications, even though that brand name has been retired. It has gained 9 spots this month, while Nokia Siemens Networks rolls out new solutions in high growth Chinese market, as well as in Europe.

Motorola is the most high profile firm that has lost ground this month and is down at 4th position after losing 2 spots. The firm has seen its market share shrink in the mobile devices market and will surely be hoping that its new MOTORAZR2 mobile helps it gain lost ground. Ericsson and Nortel have dropped out of the top 5 by losing 2 positions each and leaving Nokia as the only firm in the top 5 that has kept its position intact. Interestingly no new firm has joined/dropped out of the top 25 this month.

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.

AR spending rises from 28% to 35% of PR, says IDC

According to a B2B article, IDC's latest survey of tech vendors' marketing budgets shows that 6.3% of the budget goes on PR (down from 7.1%) and a further 2.2% on analyst relations (up from 2.0%). That's a useful benchmark for IT soltion providers: on average spend on AR is equivalent to 35% of the PR budget. Of course, that means excluding AR from the definition of PR: if AR and PR are added together at your firm, then the benchmark for AR is 26% of the total.

Of course these are averages: spending on AR is concentrated in firms selling high-value contracts, and is rare in consumer technology markets. However, the date represent a substantial 10% increase on AR' share of the marketing budget from last year. That is quite a reliable benchmark against which to measure budgets.

VMWare steals the show in the Lighthouse Software Index for September

VMware is the highest riser in the top tier of this month's Lighthouse Software Index as the firm gets a boost of 5 positions and makes it to the 9th spot. The firm has had an interesting month with a successful IPO and has analysts focusing on a number of issues related to its acquisition of Determina and its overall product strategy.

Epicor, provider of enterprise business solutions, is the biggest overall mover in this month's Software Index. The firm has expanded its presence in the Latin American and Carribean markets and looks well set for further growth in the future. SSA, the ERP brand that has been acquired by Infor, has also seen its profile move up by 15 spots as a by product of increasing focus on Infor: that may reflect obstacles for Infor in rising above the SSA brand. Infor has been named the "2007 Rising Star" by CRM Magazine and jumped up 4 spots to end up at 14th spot.

Information Builders is the firm that suffered the greatest decline this month and has slid down 16 spots to 62nd position. Apparently the firm's enhancement of WebFOCUS, its flagship product, has not been noticed by analysts till now.

In the top 25 Sage has increased its profile to gain 3 spots and enter the top 25 while SunGard has dropped 4 positions and is now out of the top 25.

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.

Picking up the money Gartner and Forrester leave on the table

Gartner and Forrester's increasing focus on global $1bn-plus firms is leaving money on the table for firms like IDC, Berlecon, NelsonHall, Burton, Pierre Audoin Consultants and Springboard to pick up. That's the conclusion I've come to after a lunch with Rahme Mehmet where we talked over Thursday's Boardroom discussion.

Around 20 senior AR and marketing directors have registed for the discussion on Thursday, many of whom will be going on to the IIAR's meeting later that afternoon. Changes at Gartner and Forrester will be the major topic in the discussion.

In short, the two most influential analyst firms both aim to get an increasing share of their revenue from large multinationals. Both Gartner and Forrester have met with success with that strategy: Forrester's 15% leap in revenue reflects that. However, a number of firms are able to benefit from the business that these firms are turning away from. In particular, new opportunities exist for work outside the English-speaking countries, in consulting engagements and in building deep niche expertise.

• IDC's recent European Forum reflected the firm's continuing leadership in emerging markets in Asia, Africa and Europe, especially in eastern Europe and the Middle East. As the analyst firm with the second-largest revenue, IDC has been able to develop a uniquely broad footprint on analysts 'on the ground'. That makes it the only analyst firm with a serious presence in most developing markets, and its is clearing away local resellers in order to go directly into high-growth markets such as South Africa. IDC knows that its verticalised Insights business are a long-term project, but are staring to deliver real credibility in some end-user markets. Our webinar will discuss that more this Friday.
  
• Berlin-based Berlecon is also finding better opportunities. This boutique has a tight focus on two connected areas: mobile business communication (topics like mobile devices, VOIP and the web-extended enterprise) and IT services (including outsourcing and SaaS). In the German-speaking market it has won a leadership position and, since most of its research is in German, its valuable niche is well off the radar of a number of North American firms. Even Gartner is wising up to the value of the German-language market (it's the largest tech market in Europe, after all), and it is organising a major German-language event. Just don't try and get there from www.gartner.de.
• Services boutiques NelsonHall is fast outgrowing its BPO niche through niche services for banking, insurance and other areas including outsourcing. By recruiting leading Ovum professionals, including Katja Grimme and Katy Ring and account manager Rob Hughes, the firm is now respected as a high-quality outsourcing player in Europe.
• One of the few firms able to hurt Gartner's pocket might be Burton Group. While we don't take seriously the idea of an analyst price war, their DropASeat.com website shows a real appetite to win business. 'Drop a seat' offers enterprise-wide access to any one of Burton's six advisory services for the price of one role-based Gartner seat. Interestingly, Burton is also tightly focused on service niches. Since Burton was the only firm to pick up notable business from the closure of META Group, we expect this campaign to also win real traction.
• Springboard is a firm we've mentioned a few times before. It was massively benefited from Gartner's consulting close-down in Asia-Pacific. Springboard is also building up its geographical reach across regions that Gartner is less interested in, such as Africa and the Middle East. It's also now part of a major international network, headed by PAC.
  
• Pierre Audoin Consultants is another firm we will highlight as a beneficiary of choices at Forrester and Gartner (and at Ovum). For several years PAC has been a highly credible provider of strategic consulting on IT services in the German and French markets. It has followed its growing into the US and UK markets by announcing a major leap forward in providing local presence in 13 countries, including partners in Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

The common threads here are easy to spot: geographical expertise or sector expertise -- most powerfully both. Firms like these are making rapid progress.

One final thought: it would be quite mistaken to think that these trends will make Gartner and Forrester anxious. In fact, by leaving something on the table for this high-growth firms they encourage them to focus on the mid-market, on consulting services and on vertical markets. Of course, this also encourages them to leave Gartner and Forrester unchallenged in their core markets, selling role-based services to multinational giants.

A little 'tweak' to our logo

Lighthouse's favoured designer, Seth, has made a slight revision to his lighthouse icon this week. Some people may not even spot the difference. The visual 'tweak' is now a widely supported visual strategy, and we are quite happy with the outcome.

Subscribers to our Analyst Index and Spotlight series may already have noticed the lighthouse, which is more naturalistic than the icon we used for the last couple of years. Our website and stationary have also been updated, and the hunt is on to change all the digital logos.

Our feeling had been that the earlier, more abstract icon was easy to reproduce on both print and online media. However, academic research shows a slight preferences for logos to become modestly more naturalistic. This more naturalistic symbol is certainly more accessible, easier to recognise and could be longer-lasting.

Dell gets to second place in the Lighthouse Systems Index

This month the Lighthouse Systems Index has a number of changes in the top 10. The most notable change is of Dell swapping places with Intel to get the 2nd spot. The fact that the company is changing its products and strategy has certainly caught the eye of analysts. Moreover, its improved financial performance coupled with the news that it is acquiring Zing Systems has certainly boosted its standing in this month's Systems Index.

Samsung which had just last month slid down one position is back at the 5th spot as it gains analyst focus for its printer designs as well as growing handset shipments.

Asus is the biggest mover this month with a gain of 6 positions as it consistently churns out a diverse array of new PC components. Hewlett-Packard, which has reportedly increased its lead as the number 1 blade server vendor has also gained 4 positions.

Infineon Technologies and Freescale are the biggest losers this month. Infineon's buying of LSI Corp's mobile phone business has not helped arrest its decline while Freescale, which is closing its UK manufacturing plants, has also dropped 4 positions this month.

The top 25 this month is an exact reversal of last month as Ricoh has re-entered the top 25 and Qualcomm has dropped out.

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.

IDC's European forum in Berlin

Around 150 executives were here with me for the start of IDC's ICT Forum in Berlin, and the numbers are now probably closer to twice that. There are a number of AR professionals here, and it's a good opportunity for them to see how large events like this can run well, and be improved.

IDC has a number of cool touches:

• the speakers are clearly well prepared and, most importantly, there is little duplication between their comments;
  
• there's a telephone number to which you can text your questions, and which they'll use for polls;
• of course they give you a huge bag (quite a nice one, from T-Systems) with lots of vendors' stuff in it (including a Siemens branded DJ Hell CD), but they also have a cloakroom so you can take the agenda out of the bag and not have to carry the rest around;
• and there are eight different soft drinks on the table.

However, there's always something to learn. We're now onto our fourth speaker of the morning, the ever-modest Don Tapscott, and that means we're on our fourth North American man. There will be Europeans speaking later, of course, but there first impression is self-evident.

Frank Gens made a good introduction on business adoption of Web 2.o techniques, and I think he missed a trick. He presented some data from a recent survey of Line of Business managers. His footnote didn't say if it was data from their European survey, but it would be interesting to see an IDC comparison between Europe and North America.

I see some similar trends when North American vendors organise large events aimed at European analysts. The opening hours of many of these events are often also dominated by North American executives; many of these firms reason that it shows commitment to stakeholders outside the US. Of course, there's a double-edge: the audience gets insights on what's happening on a global basis, but often there's little of the local data that local people need to be able to understand the pace and dynamics of change in their own region. Most people here won't get Don's Tar-zhay joke, and not all will know what Target is. And, of course, local spokespeople show the ability of the firm to invest in regional leaders who follow the big picture.

Another point in common with many vendors' analysts events: it's also not the best place for people with laptops: walking around before the start I saw no seats close to the power sockets, and the wifi isn't free (indeed, this hotel really knows its customers since it's cheaper for me to buy 30 days of wifi than two lots of three hours).

If you want to meet up here at the forum, email me.

P.S. Another observation: according to the agenda, every speaker at this event is a man! It's been a long time since I attended an event with that composition.

Lotus Notes users report newsletter issue

Some subscribers to the free monthly 'Analyst Equity' newsletter are reporting issues with the September issue, which was mailed out into the Americas on Friday.

The issues seem to be limited to users of Lotus Notes. Email us if you want the newsletter sent to a different email address, or in .pdf format.

We are changing our newsletter template over the weekend, and hope to have the issue corrected when the newsletter goes out to the other hemisphere on Monday.

Implications of the declining dollar

Readers of this blog know our view is that firms reaching out to analysts need to have some situational awareness, and be able to show they understand the wider business environment. Increasingly, this means understanding the impact of the declining dollar and the need to shift to 'Recession strategies'.

Best estimates are the the dollar will fall 8.5 percent against the Yen by the end of this year: a fall of more than 2 percent per month. The US central bank faces a difficult choice: normally a currency trading out of its normal range, especially one declining in value, would justify higher interest rates to reflect a premium that investors and lenders would need on less predictable assets. However, widespread reliance of consumers, and especially houseowners, on debt in the US means that increasing interest rates could introduce asymmetrical shocks into the domestic economy. We don't see that happening easily in the run-up to the Presidential elections. Indeed, it's seemed for the last half-year that the Federal Reserve bank seems more interested in reducing interest rates than increasing them. Reducing the cost of money would encourage investment in US equities: over the next couple of months we expect the main US stock markets may therefore rise even as the US currency falls. However, inside the US this builds up a long term credit risk, and externally it's just a kind of inflation (If a $2 stock is worth 1 pound today, then what happens if the dollar falls 10 percent by the end of this year while the stock rises 10 percent? The stock rises to $2.20, but its value in foreign current remains the same).

The Fed's current stance is that it is committed to rescuing the US credit markets from suffering real losses. This reminds me of the Bank of England's stance in the run-up to Black Wednesday. Savvy investors unsure of the future value of their exposure to credit will take this as a signal to that they can only dump their own liabilities at the Fed's expense, but can also buy under-performing loans from other investors at a discount, and then hope they can go to the Fed for the face value. This will tend to highly concentrate credit risk in the US, and to disguise the falling value of credit-based assets. Bad debts will start to to treated a little like options, with the Fed offering to trade them in for their face value. This risk is increased by the US Housing Administration's assurance on Friday that it will underwrite delinquent loans.

As the current credit crisis shows, exposure to the risks in the US economy are widely distributed around the world both through financial instruments and through the dynamics in the current WTO talks. Even in Japan, business spending outside the software sector is starting to be curtailed. That is setting the tone for similar caution elsewhere in Asia. However, the underlying situation in Asia and Europe remains stronger than in the US, and most international stock markets are rising nicely after their normal August dip.

Of course, those risks are concentrated in the US. In contrast to some international markets, US investors face the cheapest market for a dozen years, with the average price to earning (PE) ratio of 20.8, going down to 18.4 for industrial firms. In August, the S&P 500's PE fell to just 16.8. Cisco's PE ratio is at 20.5, while Microsoft is at 16.6: these firms would trade even lower were two-fifth of their sales not coming in foreign currency. US investors are pretty much accepting any reasonable offer. Increasingly they are investing abroad, buying foreign assets with their US dollars, further reducing the demand for the greenback.

As we discussed in our Gartner webinar, some US firms are unable to take advantage of the increasing value of their sales abroad. Firms that use the US dollar as their international accounting currency have the impression of hugely increasing costs abroad. This motivates some firms to curtail overseas operations which are actually able to general higher profits than domestic operations. Generally, we can see the pressure for US firms to focus more on their domestic markets, while European and Asian firms expand into higher-valued currency zones the US firms may retreat from.

We see this trend already in the analyst industry, and AR managers need to anticipate similar trends in their own markets.

SAIC shoots up in the Lighthouse Services Index

SAIC is the top mover in this month's Lighthouse Services Index as gains 6 positions to enter the top 25 after a full year. The firm known for being a leading provider of services and systems to the US military and other agencies has recently been awarded an Air Force Air Combat Command Contract. The fact that it has also been awarded an "indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract" to support the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is also noteworthy. Of the 6 firms awarded the contract, SAIC was reportedly the only non-incumbent firm.

HCL which launched a major brand awareness campaign in May has seen a useful 5 position gain this month. Lockheed Martin has also gained 5 positions as the firm continues to gain attention due to its large share in the US Department of Defense contracts. Getronics, which is being taken over by KPN, is also the subject of analysts' reports and has risen 4 positions this month.

HP Services has dropped down 6 positions this month and is now out of the top 25. The firm's services business appears to have lost the momentum it gathered after its acquisition of SPI Dynamics and is now at 29th spot. Dimension Data, which recently announced premier partner status with VMware has slid down 4 positions and out of the top 25.

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, subscribe to our Spotlight service for new and interesting analyst research or register for our monthly Advisor Spotlight Webinars.