Lighthouse Software Index launches

Lighthouse is partnering with International Developer magazine to launch the Lighthouse Software Index. The index shows the profile of the leading software brands in the research of the leading analyst houses.

It’s a classic share of voice tool, and we’ve discussed the pros and of these measures previously. Share of voice shows you how often your firm is being mentioned in research, as a percentage of your peer group as a whole.

International Developer’s editor, Adrian Bridgwater, explains the basis for the co-operation like this: “International Developer’s mission is to bring forward-thinking, impartial, bleeding edge technology editorial to a professional software audience around the world. The magazine aims to build an environment, which enables readers to learn from their peers and industry luminaries. As such, we are pleased to be working with Lighthouse Analyst Relations to pinpoint the movers and shakers in the market and highlight the direction of emerging technologies whatever their level of user penetration.”

The Software Index has that most precious quality — even your boss’s boss can understand it. So share of voice actually serves as a good, essential even, place to start with AR measurements. Share of voice is also a indicator of favor, because share of voice is an excellent indicator of awareness and because analysts’ relative awareness of your firm is an excellent predictor of their favorability.

Last year we showed how some share of voice measures make the mistake of treating each report the same. Most share of voice measurement systems cannot distinguish between the Magic Quadrant and a Counterpoint from Rob Enderle. Analysts at different firms tend to have similar opinions, but firms that advise suppliers tend to mention different firms from analysts who advise buyers. Our Index methodology address that: it weights each firm and each report differently, to reflect the different influence and publishing volumes of the different analyst firms. That is a major advantage, even if the weighting is generic rather than specific to any one market niche.

However, there are two number of features that the Software Index does not have. Not everyone needs those features, but everyone whouse make a positive choice for or against them.

  1. Tonality. Mentions can be positive or negative, and share of voice ignores that difference. There are other tools that measure tonality, including our Analyst Track service. However, not everyone needs complex measurements of tonality, especially since they are difficult to communicate with internally. But Analyst Track is vital for those few firms that experience rapid swings in tonality. In some measurement systems, a negative Gartner report and a positive report from Enderlie Group just cancel each other out. Analyst Track gives them the different weights that they have in the real world.
  2. Focus. The Index looks at every major analyst firm and every major vendor in the market. That’s the best way to start. However, some firms need to look at niche analyst firms and at niche competitors. That’s why we have a separate service, based on the same data. That looks at analyst mindshare: it gives each item a tailored weighting to reflect your market, and selects only the . We discussed that last summer.
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.