Gartner’s planned acquisition* of AMR Research sparked some vibrant conversation this week. Alex Williams posting on it at ReadWriteWeb Enterprise asked my perspective. With his OK, I’m sharing our offline exchange, which focused on enterprise supply chain decision makers.
Enterprises have been putting up with quite a bit of churn and staffing reductions among their analyst firms during this recession, and AMR Research is no exception. Still, AMR Research merging into Gartner signals the loss of yet another independent voice in the enterprise tech marketplace.
Gartner is not simply buying AMR Research business contracts. Gartner is buying the attention and trust that enterprise decision makers invest in AMR Research. That’s what will determine the lifetime value of the AMR Research clients. Attention and trust are the stakes.
The difficulty supply chain decision makers face is that they can’t easily transfer their trust in AMR Research to another analyst firm. Their biggest obstacle is limited choice. Few analyst firms come close to AMR Research in terms of size, expertise, track record, culture and clientele. The choices are:
- the giants — Gartner, Forrester, Informa/Ovum
- a few companies with dedicated teams, such as ARC Advisory and IDC Insights
- a sprinkling of qualified supply chain experts among the hundreds of small analyst firms and one-person shops
Companies comfortable with the AMR Research company culture will need to think about chemistry as much as content when considering Gartner, Forrester Research, ARC Advisory Group and IDC Insights.
The small and one-person consultancies already include several former AMR Research analysts. Decision makers comfortable with betting on the jockey, rather than the horse, will find familiar faces in this group.
What about replacing AMR Research with advisors who do not wear an analyst badge? Most decision makers already listen to several types of experts, at least in the early stages of their decision process. So in reality, this is a question of whether to direct more attention and trust to current advisors whether they be peers, consultants, etc.
My advice to AMR Research clients and partners: take a fresh look at your decision support ecosystem while you’re on honeymoon with Gartner. Assess everyone who has your ear, not just the analysts. It’s a good time to ask, “who are the smartest people on the kinds of supply chain issues we have, and do we confer with them?”
* Tekrati news coverage: joint Gartner financial release, AMR Research commentary, Gartner AR webcast
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Following on the heels of layoffs at Gartner and AMR Research, comes word that Yankee Group and iSuppli also reduced headcount. Yankee Group CEO Emily Nagel discussed the reduction in the company blog. Meanwhile, there is word of a reduction at iSuppli, a firm that just recently acquired Telematics Research Group (TRG). This much consolidation in the tech industry analyst community has implications for analyst relations and influencer programs.
Tech suppliers can react in one of two ways.
The most common reaction is list management. The premise is that you automatically replace one analyst name on your list of influencers with another analyst name. When somebody moves out, you move somebody up.
That’s exactly what the analyst salespeople want tech suppliers — and IT decision makers — to do. Swap one analyst with another. Treat them as interchangeable parts. Transfer your trust, no hesitation.
That strategy would work really well, if analysts were toasters.
The other option is research. This entails pulsing your salesforce and decision-makers and evaluating the overall market segment, to find out how influence is shifting on the ground. The idea is that you think outside the box, and make no assumptions that one analyst is replaced by another analyst out in the marketplace.
You may find that a trusted analyst is being supplanted by a consultant or a thought leader from an IT association. You may find most decision-makers taking a wait-and-see attitude, opting for no immediate adjustments to their circle of advisors.
In the end, trust is not about lists or toasters or interchangeable people. Trust is personal, especially when company or career is on the line.
Short-term, there’s little likelihood that you can uncover every decision where an exiting analyst was advising. Look into the priority transactions in your pipeline; assess and act on those situations on a case by case basis.
For the long haul? My advice is don’t rush to revise your influencer list. Live with the gaps until the dust settles and you can figure out what’s really happening.
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Gartner, being one of the few publicly traded industry analyst firms, notified the SEC that it was reducing headcount by 117 this week. This was followed by SageCircle reports of a reduction at AMR Research. Not surprisingly, the double-serving of downsizing news sent murmurs through the analyst relations and analyst watchers communities. Dennis Howlett, an Enterprise Irregulars and ZDNet blogger, posted a thoughtful perspective, well worth reading.
From my ongoing conversations with AR people over the last few months, I know there’s an assumption that the smaller (and thus ostensibly “more agile”) analyst firms will weather the 2009 economy better than the sector behemoths Gartner, Forrester Research and IDC. I don’t quite share that optimism, based on my conversations with analysts. One of the challenges is that there are so many small analyst shops vying for shrinking budgets.
And that drives me crazy.
The high number of small analyst businesses is a direct result of excessive fracturing within the analyst business. Fracturing has become a chronic problem within the analyst business. It’s epic. The entire sector is out of balance.
The fracturing is compounded by too many small firms staying small, not even attempting to grow into mid-sized firms.
If you’ve followed me even casually, you know that I’m supportive of 1-person and small-team analyst businesses in the world today. For the last 9 years, I’ve been one of the go-to people to validate them and raise their market visibility.
Many small analysts produce research and advice on par with Gartner. I just wish their business vision and execution was on a par with Gartner too.
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