[GUEST POST] Six steps to get value for money from your analyst contracts

Posted on Tuesday 11th December 2012 by Duncan Chapple

Duncan Chapple's method for optimizing spend with analyst firmsWhile the Northern hemisphere is getting chilly, this is the one month when salespeople at firms like Gartner and Forrester really start to sweat. Many vendors sign off their major contracts with analysts firms around now, and it’s a great opportunity for analyst firms and vendors to maximise the value from their contracts.

Despite the huge scale of vendor spending with analysts, many users don’t get the best value from their subscriptions. Gartner has a huge number of account managers and, while some clients don’t like being sold to, the advantage of working with Gartner is that it works harder than most other firms to make sure that seat-holders benefit from what they have bought.

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[Guest Post] Analysts are treated inhumanely

Posted on Thursday 25th October 2012 by Duncan Chapple

By: Duncan Chapple, Consultancy Director at Loudhouse 

This is an independent opinion piece submitted by an IIAR member and AR professional – it does not represent the official views of the IIAR.

Analyst relations (AR) programs have a substantial opportunity for improvement. This month I’ve been reviewing ten years’ worth of data from the Analyst Attitude Survey, which Loudhouse Research and Lighthouse AR co-produce. Around 700 analysts have taken part in the survey and, after around 180 analysts downloaded the summary last week, I’ve also been thinking over comments from them. What I’ve seen is that there’s a real opportunity to work smarter and more strategically. (more…)

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[GUEST POST] Despite it all, Ovum is still a tier one analyst firm in Europe

Posted on Wednesday 4th July 2012 by Duncan Chapple

Nice post on Ovum by the folks at Loudhouse Blog, reprinted here with their permission.  Of course, because it’s a Loudhouse post it’s not the official IIAR position, in case anyone thought otherwise.  See also the other Ovum posts on this blog, including the one on our recent IIAR London Forum featuring Ovum’s top management.

Ovum Logo

Ovum, which has been the leading European-headquartered analyst firm for around twenty years, has been going through a lot of change. That seems to be confusing both the vendor community and analyst relations professionals, who grilled the firm’s management recently. Vendors are questioning Ovum’s relevance now in way we have not seen before. The changes at Ovum are causing these confusions unintentionally but, despite that, the firm remains a key influencer in Europe. (more…)

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More stars move into the Constellation

Posted on Thursday 15th March 2012 by Duncan Chapple

The Constellation Research team at the IIAR London Forum, March 2012The IIAR’s UK chapter had a highly interactive discussion on March 14 thanks to the presence of Constellation Research‘s R “Ray” Wang (@rwang0)  and three star analysts who’ve joined his firm as vice-presidents and principal analysts: Alea Fairchild (@afairch), Charles Brett (@charlesbrett) and Paul Papadimitriou (@papadimitriou).

The meeting at the IIAR London Forum, organised by Simon Levin in the plush Bell Pottinger, HQ heard a pointed discussion on the development of new value propositions in the analyst industry, reflected by the successful growth of Constellation, which only launched in 2010. (more…)

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What’s happening at Yankee Group?

Posted on Monday 19th September 2011 by Duncan Chapple

Yankee’s Group’s summer repositioning and restructuring has, more or less, completed the firm’s evolution from a full-service analyst and consulting firm into a data-driven research and advisory firm focussed on mobility (which the firm defines as advancements that enable fluid access to any content, applications or services from any device, by anyone, from anywhere at anytime). (more…)

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Four ways analysts must respond to the crisis

Posted on Monday 25th July 2011 by Duncan Chapple

The IIAR’s developing discussion on the crisis in AR (reflected by analysts’ declining comfort in recommending solutions) took interesting turn recently. In the the institute’s second conference call on the topic, I was asked to spell out suggestions for how analysts can reverse the falling quality of information sharing by vendors, which is the root cause of analysts’ lowering confidence. These are my four suggestions. (more…)

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[IIAR Teleconference] There’s a crisis in analyst relations

Posted on Tuesday 21st June 2011 by Duncan Chapple

After more than a decade consulting to analyst relations teams, and some year before as an analyst, I’m seeing a deep, and deepening, crisis in analyst relations. It’s reflected in hard data from surveys of analysts and, in discussions over the last few weeks with AR colleagues in the hub of that crisis (the USA), I’m seeing it confirmed by the experiences and challenges facing AR professionals. (more…)

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Ethics isn’t just around white papers

Posted on Thursday 17th March 2011 by Duncan Chapple

A while back, Curt Monash (@curtmonash, blog) caught our attention by calling on tech vendors and solution providers to disclose which IT analysts’ white papers posted on their web pages, or otherwise used in marketing, are sponsored. That’s good practice, and one which most AR professionals have supported over the last decade or more.

But since AR is a two-way street, what about the reverse? Shouldn’t IT analysts (and actually, pretty much about everyone, including bloggers) disclose if a specific research area, project, note, blog post, white paper, speech, webcast, etc, is being paid for by a third party?

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Smart move: PAC buys Berlecon

Posted on Tuesday 1st February 2011 by Duncan Chapple

Today Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC, @pac_consultants) bought Berlin-based analyst and consulting firm Berlecon Research (@nicoledufft). It’s a excellent choice for PAC, and a very natural partner for Berlecon because of the two well-established firms’ long period of cooperation and their similar continental cultures and the consulting-heavy business model which is essential to success in the German market. (more…)

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IIAR Salary Survey findings: AR at 30% premium, global scope pushes AR salaries to $120,000

Posted on Monday 31st January 2011 by Duncan Chapple

The analyst relations profession has, like the industry analyst industry, been a beneficiary of the difficult times over the last few years. While staff turnover has slowed greatly, AR managers continue to win a substantial salary premium over other marketing and communications managers. Because the compensation packages of AR managers can be complex, it’s been hard to get clear data until this month when the IIAR published its first AR salaries survey.

Online job sites like Simply Hired, which are often used for more junior AR roles, says that its AR vacancies have an average salary of $67,000; around 30% more than public relations. However, even those impressive figures conceal the value that large companies place on the ability of senior AR managers to turn around details. Duncan Chapple (@duncanchapple, LinkedIn), one of the IIAR co-founder who analysed the data, says “Average salaries for AR professionals are between $110,000 and $130,000 a year, with higher salaries for global responsibilities and lower salaries for managers working in PR agencies. While AR people are normally in billion-dollar revenue firms, the turnover of AR staff is extremely low: reflecting the deep expertise needed to get to world-class standard. It’s no wonder that AR specialists are also called on to lead activities like market intelligency, influencer relations and media relations.“

The IIAR surveyed 89 managers in the niche analyst relations community. A full presentation of the results is available to IIAR members at http://bit.ly/2010SalarySurvey

Filed under: AR, IIAR, IIAR Salary Survey, Jobs -AR roles | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

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