Guest post: “We had a Wedding”

I, Kea Company, take Lighthouse Analyst Relations, to be my partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; and I promise to be faithful to you until death parts us.

On March the first we had a wedding! Kea Company and Lighthouse Analyst Relations got married. In grown up language we call this a merger or acquisition, but it is just whichever you fancy the most I’d say. Bottom-line, Lighthouse becomes Kea Company and we are now the biggest independent Analyst Relations firm in the world.

Kea Company started to offer AR services on the European mainland early 2012. We had our first merger with Daruma-Concept, a German based player who was active in the DACH region. You see, we don’t like to invent the wheel again. If we can find good people with the right knowledge and a proven track-record in supporting clients, who share our vision, there is always room to talk. In this first year that Daruma and Kea Company were together we grew over 400%. This is something M&A’s are all about. However, these growth figures are not the thing we are excited about the most. More important to us is the chemistry that we have. Growth will come when you deliver value to your customers.

And so in 2013 we stepped it up again. We wanted to offer more dedicated services to our client base. We started to look for a possible extension to Kea Company in a region we weren’t active in yet. We spoke to many people in Europe but we found a match in the United Kingdom after meeting the CEO of Lighthouse AR. This company did exactly what we had in mind and they shared the same vision when it comes to business. The huge amount of experience and track-record came as no surprise to us. Even when we started asking for something that would mean losing their brand, there was still that conviction on how to treat clients and how work should be fun and exciting. I think you can’t ask for much more than that when you are on the lookout for expanding your territory. We found a great extension to our current portfolio and management team. People with vision and knowledge, both traits clients will benefit from.

Now why would we claim that we are the biggest Analyst Relations firm? Please let me explain. At this moment Kea Company is active in nine countries in Europe and North-America. We can offer every single service that an AR team could need. We also offer all those services to companies which don’t have any dedicated AR staff. Our client base goes from five hundred thousand to fifty billion a year turnover. And we don’t have to stop with AR. Our highly skilled professionals can assist you with much more. The one stop shop that loads of people talk about, we have. Everything is in-house. We don’t have to wait for anybody or anything. This is not only a luxury for us, but also for our clients. The people that support our clients with Analyst Relations are ex Gartner, Forrester, IDC and Ovum. We have ex-account managers but also ex-analysts. If you trust Kea Company and what we stand for, you will get what you paid for.

By the end of this year we will be on the lookout to expand again. Why? Because we can. Since not everybody made it to our wedding, we are still very much open to your thoughts and feedback. There are many more people in this world who like to do business like we do. Our door is always open for people that know how to behave and act professional.

P.S. We will skip our honeymoon for now, so we will available for any calls. Like my daddy always says: Business as usual.

The article first appeared at the Kea Company blog.

Duncan Chapple

Duncan Chapple is the preeminent consultant on optimising international analyst relations and the value created by analyst firms. As SageCircle research director, Chapple directs programs that assess and increase the business value of relationships with industry analysts and sourcing advisors.