Skills Connections

IIAR Webinar – Everest Group – Technology Trends Re-shape Global Services

Report from the IIAR Webinar with Everest Group, on the 19th March 2014, presented by Eric Simonson (Managing Partner, Research), Rajesh Ranjan (VP, BPO),  Jimit Arora (VP IT Services) and hosted by Simon Levin (IIAR Board) In the webinar, Everest Group examined key trends that are re-shaping global services (Everest Group defines global services as …

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Examining The New Gartner Interactive Magic Quadrant

Gartner has recently announced that an enhanced version of the Magic Quadrant will be released  on 29 July. So what’s driving this change, what is it, and what does it mean to you as an AR professional? Here comes MQ 2.0 The Gartner MQ has not really changed its physical appearance since its original introduction. …

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A New Year and a New Owner for Yankee Group – the 451 Group

On January 3rd 451 Group announced the acquisition of Yankee Group from Alta Communications (private equity firm) for an undisclosed sum. All Yankee Group employees are to be retained and the company will operate as an independent division of the 451 Group adding the 18 analysts (and 7 affiliate analysts) of Yankee Group to the …

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[Guest Post] Humpty Gartner’s Logic

Blog courtesy of: Simon Levin (IIAR Board Member), Managing Director at The Skills Connection A client of mine was talking to a Gartner analyst recently and learned, to his delight, that the analyst had given a particular prospect a clear steer in his direction. “They’re a mid-sized company and they asked for my advice on …

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[GUEST POST] Big Dogs don’t yap: the secret ingredient for MQ success

Blog courtesy of: Simon Levin (IIAR Board Member) What is it that makes the difference when it comes to making the step up into the Leaders section of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant? Ever wondered what companies who gain recognition as Leaders have in common? Having seen four of our MQ Tune-Up clients gain Leaders status for the …

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Simon Levin / Skills Connections (IIAR, 2013)

[Guest Post] Does the consulting approach beat published research?

By: Simon Levin, The Skills Connection / IIAR UK Co-Chapter Lead We saw an interesting blogging spat last week between Stanton Jones of ISG and Lydia Leong at Gartner, with the flames fanned by tweeted comments from Phil Fersht of HfS. The row was centred on some research published recently by Lydia on managed hosting providers, but …

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[Guest Post] The Secret Sauce and the Secret Sorcerers by Simon Levin

I was sitting in the middle of a noisy intellectual ruckus about the future of research and advisory services some weeks back when an odd thought struck me. It was at the London IIAR meeting in March, where R “Ray” Wang and his Constellation all-stars were agitating for radical change in the research industry. Ray …

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[GUEST POST] Timing is everything

There’s no penalty for jumping the gun On your marks. Get Set. Go. When the starting gun goes off, there is always going to be a rush of adrenalin, a surge of excitement, and a striving to get up to speed and do your best. But when the starting gun goes off in relation to …

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