It seems Bruce Temkin (right) is set to leave Forrester Research and it seems that others may also be on the move. I still don’t have any definite news on where the Customer Experience guru is headed, but Forrester Research will surely miss such a prolific publisher of quality research. He’s a good keynote speaker, too, and media-friendly. Quite the all-rounder.

I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.

As is the way with these things, the rumour is that a bunch of analysts are about to up sticks, just as they did last summer when first best-selling author Charlene Li struck out on her own, then she was quickly joined by several other star analysts who now make up Altimeter Group. Similarly, Phil Fersht left Cognizant to form Horses for Sources, which was already the name of his popular sourcing blog that is powered by Phil’s LinkedIn group The BPO and Offshoring Best Practices Forum, now it became a powerful new force in global outsourcing as Phil was joined by a raft of industry heavyweights.

EDIT: Former Forrester Research analyst and current member of the Altimeter Group Ray Wang has pointed out on Twitter that Cliff Condon has confirmed Bruce’s departure via a comment on Victoria Bough’s blog. Boy, that was convoluted.

Still no news as to where Bruce is headed.

A couple of weeks later, having not heard any news, I checked in with my colleague to see if he’d followed up with the candidates. He hadn’t.

When I asked why not, as both really did seem a potentially excellent match for the job, he replied “Job protection, Dom, job protection.”

The firm I was working for didn’t interview either candidate, my colleague’s team continued to underperform and in that one sentence, all my professional respect for him went up in smoke.

I don’t understand why people don’t realise that they need to recruit the best people. In the example above, it wasn’t a question of the candidates wanting too much money, or even of being too senior – their experience matched the job spec, which is why they sent their resumes. The problem was that the incumbent team leader knew that he wasn’t as good as he should be and didn’t want to be found out.

The reality is that if you hire brilliant people and coach them properly, you will bask in their glory. Oh, and in a competitive market, the business should benefit, too.

EFFECTIVE ANALYST RELATIONS REQUIRES SUBSCRIPTIONS. There, I’ve said it. In capitals. Feel free to disagree with me, but please allow me to explain where I’m coming from…

In the world of ICT, analysts are a unique influencer, not only do they interact with multiple audiences, but also, in many cases, it is possible to pay to have access to their research and, with certain firms to the analysts themselves, through an analyst subscription.

You don’t need analyst subscriptions to do AR, but it helps. A lot. In fact I’ll go further than that: if your AR team doesn’t have access to at least one relevant analyst subscription, it has one hand tied behind its back.

I recently debated this last point with the AR lead of a global comms agency. He reckoned I was talking rubbish and gave examples of some great results he achieved before his employer started investing in analyst subscriptions. “So, now you’ve got subscriptions, would you give them back?” I asked. “Well, no…”

In this post we’ll look at how ICT vendors leverage subscriptions to promote their company and their technologies. I’d like to consider PR/comms agencies separately.

Over the years, I’ve heard lots of sceptical comments from vendors who don’t pay for subscriptions or run AR programmes: ‘they’ll probably go and tell the competition all our secrets’ is a typical one, or ‘the analyst game is pay to play¹ – they just say what their paymaster tells them to say.’ My short answer to this type of comment is that if that were the case, why would so many very successful companies have sophisticated, ongoing AR programmes?² There are longer, less facetious answers too, but I acknowledge that a leap of faith, together with a modicum of common sense (do you really need to bring your dirty washing to the picnic?) are required when deciding to engage with industry analysts.

The two fundamental reasons that a vendor will pay for a subscription at one of the major analyst firms are to buy market intelligence and to buy mindshare. The former may well be part of an AR programme, but is just as often handled by a separate team that specialises in analysing the competitive landscape. While I’m mindful that the use of research/analysts for competitive intelligence (CI) is an important subject that is worthy of its own post(s), in the interests of brevity, I’m going to park it for now and stick to AR as a marketing activity.

So, this mindshare thing…

The role of the industry analyst is a busy one – Wikipedia lists client briefings/consultation, publishing, public speaking, media relations, and industry networking as typical deliverables and on top of that, she probably has a great deal of professional travelling. In short, her time is precious. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that the amount of time she has to spend on any one particular vendor can be measured in hours per year.

Without a subscription, an ICT vendor can apply to brief an analyst and it’s basically up to the analyst to decide if a briefing is relevant to his research schedule or not, in which case he will decline the briefing request.³ Assuming that he accepts the request, you then have one hour to deliver an outstanding briefing about your mind-blowing solution. And whatever you do, don’t count on it being a full 60 minutes – things go wrong, people get delayed, presentations don’t work, the analyst will have tricky questions, oh and the salesperson he brought along will need at least 15 minutes…

You might get lucky and the analyst is so impressed that she wants to look deeper into what you tell her and write a report (and so begins what Michael Krigsman refers to as “the vendor / analyst mating dance”) but the odds suggest this won’t happen and you’ll leave in the knowledge that the analyst now has a superficial understanding of what your company does. In about six months time, she will be able to fit in a further briefing.

One hour really isn’t a long time to explain a technological innovation, or a killer strategy, let alone both.

By paying for a subscription, which gives access to analysts under inquiry⁴ (see next paragraph), a vendor substantially increases the length of time that it can spend with key analysts. What’s more, as a paying client, the vendor decides if the inquiry is needed.⁵ Larger ICT vendors will usually have multiple subscriptions – the most I have heard of is one mobile technology company that subscribes to 19 different analyst firms.

Technically, a briefing and an inquiry are for different purposes – the former is the vendor supplying information to the analyst, whereas an inquiry is essentially the reverse; the analyst answers the vendor’s questions regarding the industry. In practice, there is an exchange of information in each type of meeting and a good analyst will use both to learn more. She has to – the wise man I mentioned in the 1^st post in this series once told me

“an analyst doesn’t know anything she hasn’t been told.” - J Yarmis, c. 2007

Given her workload, her primary source of information will be her clients.

Think what this means for key reports such as vendor comparisons like the Forrester Wave, or the Gartner Magic Quadrant. By planning its interactions, a vendor can ensure that the authors are fully briefed while they are researching their forthcoming report and can check how well its messages are coming across through one or more inquiries.

The non-subscribing competitor can pray that the authors have the time and inclination for a briefing…

Some firms sell analyst inquiry time by the hour, at others it is unlimited (although there is probably a fair usage clause somewhere). However it’s packaged, subscribing vendors are able to secure substantially more face time with the analysts than their non-subscribing competitors.

As I wrote in the 2^nd post, AR pros teach their spokespeople that they need to engage in a conversation with key analysts and this is true – in fact, I recently met Efrem Mallach (and I doubt there’s a greater AR expert than him) who was at pains to underline the fact that two-way dialogue is crucial. Vendors help educate the analysts so they have a better understanding of the marketplace and analysts give feedback about how the market will react to strategies and how best to position products and services. If your competition is monopolising the conversation through their subscriptions, how are you going to get a word in edgeways?

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Footnotes:

1. Pay to play = commercial bribery. Yes, it did occur in the last century, but respectable analysts don’t do it.
2. If you want a list of ICT vendors that I’ve delivered AR programmes for, let me know and I’ll knock up a list…
3. If you do have a briefing request declined, do think hard before escalating it to the analyst’s management – you really, really don’t want to vex the analyst by talking to him about something he thinks is irrelevant to him. Seriously.
4. In British English, this is written ‘enquiry’ – it is rare that I am inconsistent in following spelling rules, but I have given up trying to educate my esteemed US peers and colleagues…
5. Please bear in mind footnote 3 above.

It’s not as though I’ve been completely lazy – I’ve been signing up clients and delivering services to them! It’s always a challenge to find the time to write up thoughts and experiences, while concentrating on running a business and making sure that clients are happy (and that invoices are paid).

Still, I agree that I’ve been a wee bit lax, so it’s time to get writing again!

EDIT: 19th Feb – I cheated and posted the first half of part three… the next post will be the juicy bit.

One in-house AR who used to work in PR pointed out yesterday that for some IT firms, even getting on the radar of the industry analysts is of value, so perhaps I was a little harsh. While I accept his point, I contend that unless the initial awareness-raising is followed up with a systematic engagement programme, even a light one, it’s of very little real value in the longer term.

Which leads me nicely into today’s topic: 

Level 2: AR as a Two-Way Conversation

Although it may not be obvious at first glance, this is a quantum leap from AR as PR.

Recognising the points in my previous post, effective AR teams work to build an ongoing dialogue with analysts so that the analyst is fully informed about developments and, just as crucially, execs are informed about the analyst’s thinking.

I recognise that best practice in PR is also to build relationships with key media thus making it easier to pitch a story, but a fundamental difference with AR is that the opportunity exists to create and maintain high quality conversations about a topic of shared interest over a period of time. Remember that, for the most part, analysts enjoy giving advice – that is, after all, why they became analysts – if they’re any good, their advice is worth taking. Companies that treat analysts as journalists are missing the opportunity to learn from experts whose opinions can have a direct impact on sales and market valuation.

Often (and I recommend asking analysts for their individual preferences) it is appropriate to establish regular briefing sessions – quarterly is common for large IT firms – during which analysts receive an update on what has been happening with technological advances and/or an overview of trading conditions (the latter may be limited by rules relating to financial disclosure). The quid pro quo is that most analysts expect to be asked for their take on what they have heard and on market conditions in general. Really comprehensive AR programmes will supplement these regular briefings with less formal executive contact in the form of telephone calls, ad hoc dinners, product demos, etc.

Of course contact shouldn’t be limited to execs only and AR professionals do get to know their analysts pretty well – I know several in-house AR leads who expect their teams to find out analysts’ birthdays and other personal data as well as learning more formal information such as briefing preferences. Bearing in mind the number of analysts that cover a company (ranging from a handful to several hundred) this requires a degree of effort.

Sure, it takes time, but the rewards can be huge.

From the vendor’s perspective, working closely with key analysts can be extremely productive and can certainly help avoid potential headaches. First of all, an analyst can provide feedback on, for instance, how stakeholders will react to a proposed strategy and she can confirm (or challenge) the company’s view of the marketplace. There is a point at which the analyst might suggest entering into a commercial arrangement if you need to pick her brains further, which is fine in the right circumstances, but it’s possible to glean a lot of information for free PROVIDED you’ve built up a relationship based on mutual trust.

The key point is that experienced industry analysts know a lot about the market. They spend a considerable amount of time speaking to industry players and analysing what they learn. Tapping into an analyst’s knowledge is a short-cut, a bit like running an industry focus group, but using a single person who has deep knowledge in his area of expertise. Too many people (and this includes everyone who practises AR as PR) see only one side of the analyst’s role – they see him as a channel through which they can push their messages out.

As I said in my previous post, this is missing the point.

Analysts thrive on dialogue – they need to be as up to date as possible with what is going on in their coverage area. This requires a continuous exchange of information. Sometimes this will result in a published report, or a webinar to a large audience, but more often an analyst shares her views when speaking to people – offline and behind closed doors. If you aren’t one of her trusted contacts, you won’t be able to hear what she’s saying.

Of course, reports shouldn’t be ignored as they can have a major impact on business performance, as ZL Technologies recently demonstrated by suing Gartner over its rating of the vendor’s email archiving products. I don’t know the details of that particular situation, but often disagreements of this nature can be avoided naturally by establishing a relationship with key analysts through regular, open conversations.

I know of numerous IT firms whose execs and AR leads have calls with key analysts prior to the publication of major reports so that they can input to the final document and/or check facts. In the words of one in-house AR I spoke to recently, “if you’re not seeing the reports before they’re published, you’re not doing your job.”

I should make it clear that this is not collusion. Of course, the vendor wants to be seen in the best light, but it’s in everybody’s interest to ensure accuracy. If an analyst were to produce a duff report, his reputation would suffer and his influence would be diminished. Besides, independence is the analysts’ watchword and must be respected, so fact-checking is not an opportunity for a company to game the system.

Can you imagine a company having this kind of relationship with a journalist? For the most part, I’d argue that it isn’t appropriate.

From the agency side, having a solid working relationship with a set of analysts is very useful. If you’re about to pitch for a piece of business, for example, isn’t it helpful if you can make a call to an expert to find out how your prospect is doing? Not just in terms of how effective they are communicating, but what their business looks like and where their strengths and weaknesses are perceived to be.

Speaking to an informed analyst allows you to provide the pitch team with insights that can transform their approach – if you know the analyst well enough, you may also be able to work out who you’re up against because your competitors may be speaking to the same analysts… if you’re reading this and you’ve lost to me in pitches but couldn’t understand why, go figure!

As well as helping their clients establish relationships with analysts and ensuring that information is delivered on time, logistics managed properly, etc, agency AR teams should also be listening out for competitive information that can help clients achieve their business goals. This intelligence may come via formal outputs, such as a written report – just as often, it will come from (you guessed it) conversations.

Next: AR Level 3 – where it really starts to become fun.

Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, right?

When explaining AR to non-practitioners (and some practitioners, too) I generally start by establishing that the discipline is most mature within information and communication technologies (ICT) even if it is an approach that can largely be applied to other sectors. That’s why you find in-house AR teams within the marketing/PR/corp comms departments of tech and telecoms companies¹. In the agency world, too, AR usually lives within the Tech PR team. Actually, I believe that this can damage the perception of AR and comms agencies might consider making a clearer distinction.

The reason AR is so well established in ICT is that there is an army of industry analysts whose job it is to research and analyse ICT markets (if you want a potted history and pretty good summary of the industry analysis landscape, you could do far worse than read the opening chapters of “Influencing the Influencers” by Bill Hopkins and his friends at KCG).

Analysts come in various flavours, each with different requirements but all sharing a need to communicate constantly with market players so that they can advise their clients who include buyers of and investors in ICT.

I generally contend that AR programmes can have three levels of sophistication. Today I will look at the most basic (and ineffective) level and I’ll follow it up with a discussion of more advanced AR over the next couple of days.

Level 1: AR as PR

This is what thousands of low-end Tech PR agencies offer their clients, possibly believing that it is a valuable service. I’ve also known a few vendors taking this approach in their eagerness to reassure senior executives that they are not neglecting this influential stakeholder audience. Oftentimes, however, this approach will result in harming relationships with analysts (I do know of one case where it worked brilliantly, but that really was the rule-proving exception).

AR as PR involves adding a few analysts (maybe a lot of analysts) to an existing PR programme so that they receive news releases, invitations to media events, etc. whenever the client has a story it wants to see in the papers. News releases may be followed up by an eager call to ‘sell in’ the story.

Trouble is, this is completely missing the point.

Industry analysts strive to be experts in their coverage area. They are not necessarily interested in grabbing a ‘scoop’ but focus on the underlying business and technology drivers that affect the sector or companies they study. Unlike many traditional journalists, an analyst is not writing a one-off story for a publication that might not publish again on the same subject for months, even years.

Depending on the particular analyst, she may mention your company in a report, or write an entire tome on your firm, or on just one particular product or technology, or she may write nothing at all because that’s not her job. She might also provide her clients with confidential advice on whether or not to consider you as a supplier, or she could pop up on TV or radio telling the world that your sector is set to grow exponentially over the next few years (or bomb).

A wise man once told me that an analyst only knows what she has been told. It’s true and the implication is that analysts need constantly to be speaking to ICT vendors and end-users² so that they have a complete, up-to-date understanding of what is going on out there – remember, analysts are in the business of making predictions, estimating market sizes and how well technologies will sell as well as a bunch of other stuff that help people make investment decisions.

Some analysts do like to receive media releases, but I can assure you that they prefer to be briefed ahead of a major press launch, so that they can work out the implications before being asked to comment by their clients or the media.

That last point on its own should be sufficient reason to separate AR from PR programmes: many journalists like to strengthen articles with a quote from an industry analyst, who they consider to be informed, independent third parties. Unless he has had a chance to get his head round your major technological innovation, he won’t be in a position to explain how ground-breaking it is, will he?

But the most important lesson is that analysts build deep relationships with the companies they follow. Analyst firm IDC has been around since 1964, Yankee Group started in 1970 and Gartner was founded in 1979. Their key analysts have been speaking to execs at major ICT firms for years, perhaps decades. One function of AR is to assist and enhance a set of ongoing relationships – I have run individual AR programmes over several years, but I was always conscious that my client’s relationship with certain core analysts had lasted much longer and indeed continues today even though my contract may have finished.

Analysts are interested in evolution over time, not just the latest fads and gimmicks. If someone tries to pitch her something half-baked, an experienced analyst should see through the hot air and point out the flaws. That’s another very valid reason to brief media separately from analysts. Trust me on this.

Personally, I’ve never been interested in AR as PR, as it adds little business value.

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Footnotes:

1. Deciding the best department into which AR should report is an important and much-debated subject in its own right and best left to another day.
2. There are a few exceptions who only speak to one side of the marketplace.

Cut into three sections, the first part of Mark’s presentation can be found here, the second part here and the final section here.

An summarized version of the entire presentation can be viewed on Mark’s YouTube channel here.

Unfortunately, I am still experimenting with this blog module and have not yet worked out how to embed videos into the body of an entry, hence the links.

It’s a very entertaining talk in which Mark uses a series of unusual visual techniques to drive his points home.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Duncan has already posted about the new exam and my thoughts largely echo his.

It is very positive to see a cross-industry move to create standards within AR, especially given its persistent image as somewhat inaccessible within the related fields of marketing and public relations. Hopefully, the exam will go some way to demonstrating that AR is not so much a ‘dark art’ as a systematic approach to engaging with an influential set of advisors with a view to helping to increase sales.

A word of warning for people who are thinking of taking the exam – having seen some of the sample questions, my advice is to prepare thoroughly!

Edit: Peggy has written an introduction to the test.

First client in place? Check.

Website up and running? Check (even if it’s a temporary site).

Email accounts working? Check.

There seem to be a hundred little things to do in order to get everything up and running for Buzz Method Ltd. Soon I’ll be able to focus on client work. Hopefully very soon.

I’m going to make an effort to write up my thoughts on ‘corporate communications’ in today’s world. After all, that’s why Buzz Method came about, so it’s a logical subject for this blog.