Success breeds success: When I talk to technology vendors about starting an analyst relations program I get all kinds of reactions. One way or another most vendors have had first or second hand experiences with analysts. Either they’ve seen competitors promoting the latest research publication which featured them in a favorable way or they have had prospects telling them that they need to be ‘on the radar’ of the analysts to be considered as a supplier.
At this point most vendors start thinking about ways to work with analysts with the goal in mind to be featured in research. At Kea Company we work with vendors from a huge range of ‘maturity stages’ all the way from start-ups to established multibillion dollar enterprises. What strikes me as quite interesting is the fact that those who in the end decide to enter the shark tank of analyst engagements are the ones most confident about their capabilities and the ones with the biggest ambitions to succeed in the market.
Here are five attitudes I see with vendors who decide to take on analyst relations:
– They are convinced that they can stand up to a critical and informed audience: The analysts
– They are certain they have a story to tell that is relevant for a broader audience.
– They feel that they are bringing innovation to the market.
– They have a competitive offering which they are certain to succeed if they get shortlisted.
– They are confident that they will achieve significant growth and expand their market presence.
In the end it all comes down to a single message: Companies who embark on the analyst relations journey do so because they feel they are at least as good as the competitors already featured in research and/or they are convinced that their offering meets a demand in the market.
On the other end of the spectrum there are a lot of vendors who fear that they might be too small and their footprint not global enough. They think their references might be too small or too local or that their solutions not sophisticated enough and still needs feature x, y, z before it is finally ready to be presented to the analysts. These vendors typically keep postponing analyst relations indefinitely and even if they decide to start working with analysts they tend to not stick with it long enough to harvest the fruits of their efforts.
Engaging analysts to tell your story sends a clear signal to these analysts and to your customers/prospects: We are a force to be reckoned with and we are certain that we can offer value to our customers which no other company can deliver.
Join the discussion and meet your peers.
On September 14th we will once again be hosting our Kea Analyst Relations Value Forum in London to discuss the analyst market and the role analyst relations has to play in order to contribute to business success. If you are an analyst relations professional or an executive at an IT vendor we would like you to join the discussion and to welcome you to our forum.
