Unexpectedly, the Analyst Value Survey has identified some new areas where the leading analyst firms seem to be failing. Yesterday’s preview webinar for participants in the Analyst Value Survey found a lot of continuity in the market.

Looking at the top 15 firms, we found that:

• Influence on buyers is fairly stable
• Gartner is the firm whose reputation for independence has eroded the most
• Firms’ influence is larger than its subscriber base; at least twice as large, but very often four or five times larger.
• Some topics are very well covered and some are very badly covered; meaning that for some research topics users are using just four or five firms, but for others it might be eight or nine firms.
• Generally speaking, analyst value is correlated with firm size on a curve that looks a little like the Gartner’s Hype Cycle: the mid-size firms are generally delivering below-average value for money; the next five are well above average; the big three firms are average.
• Firms on the supply side are generally pretty happy with value for money; firms on the demand side have more diverse experiences: end users are not happy with every firm.
• Experiences are also uneven regionally; analysts’ users in EMEA are generally happy, but in the rest of the world the experiences are more uneven.

The survey also gathered data on mid-sizes and smaller firms. The freemium model is working well for what we might call the upper-low end of the market: firms with five or fewer analysts don’t have the marketing resources needed to sell subscriptions but are still getting an audience.

We’ll be exploring these issues at the Analyst Relations Forum, and making the results available after then. Contact us to find out more.