Because analysts are under more pressure to deliver insights that correspond closely to end-users’ needs, solution providers have a huge advantage when spokespeople are able to develop influential conversations focussed on the analysts’ clients’ needs. Sadly, spokespeople are badly selected, [...]
AR professionals can build sales by focussing on analysts who influence sales, and by turning the conversation to the impact of market changes on customers. Market analysts, quite understandably, look at the whole market and will welcome informed conversation with [...]
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are a continual bone of contention between vendors and the analyst industry. Lighthouse feels that their impact is almost universally negative, especially in relation to briefings and analyst events. This post aims to outline the four main [...]
AR managers need to quit whining about Forrester’s role based research. To make progress, start speaking about the success imperatives its role-based research is founded on. It’s been more than two years since Forrester started the series of focus groups [...]
Merv Adrian’s posting reminded me how being given vendors’ Powerpoint after a briefing was really useful for me when I was an analyst. You can go into the outline view and cut and paste the heading into Word, then type [...]
The new Microsoft emails uncovered in the ‘Vista Capable’ dispute illustrate the firm’s thoughtful and analyst-driven approach to analyst relations. CNET open source blogger Matt Asay has written about the analyst relations strategies used by Microsoft with Gartner over Vista: [...]
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve helped run a few in-house analysts relations workshops for clients (along with Efrem Mallach and ex-Ovum analyst Alban Thurston) all of which have touched on how spokespeople can develop more influential and insightful [...]
There’s some discussion on how to spot a good analyst, which has won some kudos. What this post really describes are the analysts who are most likely to give satisfying verbal interactions. However, other analysts, even ‘poor’ ones, are often [...]
There’s always a lot of interest in best practices for analyst-vendor briefings. Sadly, everyone has their own partial view, and sometimes it’s hard to work out the things that work right for you, but that might not work out for [...]
Some folk think we are over-impressed by the novelty of Forrester’s move towards multi-vendor briefing days. Thanks to Barbara for her comment: “I’m surprised that you don’t see the Forrester Briefing Day program pretty much as an analyst implementation of [...]
