The IIAR> Institute of Influencer & Analyst Relations / Around Ollie O’Donoghue from PAC in 10 questions

Today’s IIAR> Around in 10 questions interview is with Ollie O’Donoghue, Senior Analyst, Teknowlogy (@Originollie, LinkedIn, blog) who covers cloud and cybersecurity.

What are your coverage areas?
My core coverage areas are Cloud and Cybersecurity, I also get involved with some of the other research clusters we have at PAC, including AI and Analytics. A really important differentiator for us is our strong understanding of local markets across Europe, so alongside my horizontal coverage, I also help clients understand opportunities and developments in the UK market.

2. What are your opinions of the IT Analysis Marketplace and where do you see it going?
It’s a fantastic industry to work in, there aren’t many other jobs out there where you get to learn something new every day. And the future’s bright – client’s really value the analysis we offer, and as the market gets more complex the value of analyst insight can only increase.

3. What’s your typical day like?
I usually kick off the day with a bit of planning and catching up on emails, then we have our morning catch-up with the rest of the UK team – it’s a great opportunity for us all to talk about what we’re working on and figure out new ways to work together. Then it’s usually time to get cracking on some research – depending on the day this might be through a series of briefings to understand what leading firms are doing in the market. Or it might be contributing to reports and figures in our SITSI research platform. Towards the end of the day it might be time to present some of our latest research to a client (virtually these days, although looking forward to doing this in person soon!)

4. Now, c’mon, tell me an AR horror story?
Honestly, I can’t think of any real horror story – sorry a bit boring…

5. Any favourite AR professional you’d like to mention? Any why?
Now you’re talking, honestly there are so many to mention. Suzannah and Alexia over at EY are always great to work with. I have to mention Liz at Capgemini too. And always happy to engage with Gaurav at Infosys. Krista and Tatiana at ServiceNow have made it so easy getting hold of the right information. So has Amanda at Oracle. And it would be unforgiveable not to mention Caroline and Helen over at Atos, a lot of great engagement there! I could go on…I get to work with a lot of great people!

6. Tell us about one good AR practice you’ve experienced or one good AR event you’ve attended.
Analyst portals have come a long way over the last few years it’s now much easier to get hold of the information we need as analysts to do our jobs. And a lot of firm’s have reacted admirably to the need to move events online. I’ve just been to an event with Zoho and another with EY, and they both nailed it – easy to absorb information, great selection of subject matter experts on stage, and easy ways to engage through chat, Q&A and 121s.

7. What are your offerings and key deliverables?
The flagship offering we have is our SITSI research platform – that’s where you can find most of the research I work on, from local market numbers to survey-based trend reports. We also have a large consulting business where we help clients tackle challenges head on – on the vendor side this may be helping them to refine their positioning and go-to-market strategy. On the enterprise side it might be digging deeper with them into our latest RADARs – which are our vendor benchmarking reports – and help them figure out which vendors and providers best fit their requirements. We also offer a lot of popular services and solutions to help clients build strong thought leadership that stands out from the market noise.

8. Any hobbies or favourite restaurant / food that you’d like to share?
I hate questions about hobbies because I genuinely don’t have anything that interesting to talk about – I guess I read quite a bit, and I’ve recently started cycling more in a bid to keep the lockdown weight down!

9. What is your biggest challenges for the upcoming 6 months? And for the next 30 mn?
I think the biggest and most interesting challenge ahead is figuring out how different industries, and horizontal service lines will evolve long-term as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve already seen some obvious shifts – like a boom in cloud services – but we need to figure out what happens next, and help our clients do the same.

10. Is there another analyst (a peer in your firm or with another firm) whose work you rate highly?
There are a few, but to pick one I have to say working with Nick Mayes at PAC has been great – he’s a rare kind of analyst where you genuinely learn something new every time you speak to him. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the IT Services market – he’s like a living deal tracker!