In any business environment the phrase ‘best practice’ sooner or later comes up when people are talking about planning, execution and measurement of business activities. According to Wikipedia “a best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. In addition, a “best” practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered.”
So the concept is fairly straight forward but to establish what actually constitutes best practice in a specific context is anything but easy. In addition even knowing what the ‘best practices’ are doesn’t necessarily meant that you know how to actually implement them in your specific environment. In today’s blog post I want to look at ‘best practices’ in the context of analyst relations.
Getting started with analyst relations can prove to be quite a challenge if a company does not have any previous experience in dealing with analyst companies. The number of analysts who are covering a specific technology niche is usually limited so it is very hard to just get started and learn to do the job while you are doing it. Chances are that you will end up making some serious mistakes which – given the limited audience size – will prove to be very hard to correct. I have listened in, and helped prepare dozens of vendor presentations and analyst meetings. It is fair to say that the range of professionalism I have seen varies greatly. So working out the ‘best practices’ on your own will mean that you are taking quite a risk with the reputation of your company.
Now, what do we do when we don’t know what to do? Right, you hire an expert who knows how things need to be done. Well, based on my experience this is not what will actually ensure that you are executing ‘best practices’. Knowing what works and what doesn’t and understanding the agenda of the various analyst firms and the individual analysts only helps to a certain degree. In my opinion ‘best practice’ in analyst relations is not based on finding that one magic bullet. Doing analyst relations this way is a static approach that amounts to pushing (un-customized) information in the direction of your target analysts without really building a relationship. It is my opinion that the ‘best practices’ for a vendor are a very individual thing that depends on the available resources (time, money and expertise) a company can „spare“ for analyst relations, the technology niche the vendor is active in and the agility of the vendor (both in terms of innovation and in terms of growing the business). Only when balancing these factors will you be able to come up which an analyst relations program that will not only reach the analysts but will actually convince them. Having worked with many vendors throughout my time at an analyst firm and now as an analyst relations consultant I have seen some good and quite a few bad examples which have brought me to the conclusion that there is no way you can completely outsource your analyst relations program. Any truly successful analyst relations program will always be a highly customized joined effort which combines the know-how of the analyst landscape with the specific inside knowledge about your company. More than anything this means that ‘best practices’ in analyst relations are based on building the right team with both internal and external parties and staying flexible enough to adapt to changes in the market and analyst perception.
So if you are willing to compete in the field of analyst relations, make sure that you are well prepared and have all the resources in place to win the game. Trying to find the right way without staying engaged will not be enough when you are competing on a global level and when messing things up might mean that you won’t get a second chance to fix things.
This post originally appeared on MarketMindshare.Wordpress.com.
Ready for more? Subscribe to Kea Company’s Influencer Insights
Join hundreds of peers and get Kea Company’s latest blogs, webinars and downloadable content straight to your inbox. Enter your email address below:
Error: Contact form not found.
