Gartner’s share of the value created by the analyst industry is slowly trickling down. The 2017-18 Analyst Value Survey shows that Gartner produced for analyst value than any other firm: 25%. Compare that with 31% in 2015 and you get a sense of the change in the market.
It’s not that Gartner is shrinking. Quite the opposite. With the purchase of CEB, the growth of Gartner’s sales and business development organizations (a new sales location opened up in Dallas for example) and rising revenue, Gartner’s shareholders are right to be happy.
However, the relative opacity of the demand for analysts’ insight conceals the massive growth of the freemium sector.
EM360º spotlights the opacity
EM360º, a content marketing company which assists consultancies and vendors in the tech industry, gave its best attempt at a ranking “of the top 10 tech analyst firms according to their revenues and tech capabilities”. Major players like Ovum and 451 Research were missing, while much smaller firms like Parks Associates and Digital Clarity made their top ten.
This flaw says little about EM360º and much more about the challenge of identifying the firms which are valued and used the most in the tech industry and its clients.
Growth of Freemium
What makes this complex is the change in IT buying. Line of business managers often cant access premium research, so they use freemium research. That meets their needs less well, so they use more firms. Buyers, in particular, end up using many more firms that they did.
That is reflected by the Analyst Firm Awards. In every segment, freemium research is advancing.
Who’s growing?
See the full list segment by segment:-
- Americas: north, central and south America (2018 award here).
- Global: the rest of the world (2018 award here).
- Enterprise: covering Integration; Database Management; Security & Privacy; Risk, Governance & Compliance; Fraud Detection; Open Source; Human Capital Management; Mergers & Acquisitions; CRM & Customer Service; Social; Total Cost of Ownership; Enterprise Applications; Software; Application Development; Application Infrastructure; Internet Applications; IT Administration; Digital Commerce; E-Commerce; Business Process; and BPM (2018 award here).
- Telecoms & Networking: covering Wireless; Telecoms Services; Telecoms Equipment; Telecoms Network Architecture; Mobile; Virtualization; Cloud Communications; Networks; and Unified Communications (2018 award here).
- Services & Cloud: covering Strategy; Platform as a Service; IT Services; Outsourcing; Cloud Applications; Cloud Infrastructure; Cloud Platforms; Business Intelligence; Internet of Things; Analytics; and Big Data (2018 award here).
- Marketing & Policy: covering Consumer Technology; Small/Medium Business; Channels; Law & Policy; Analyst Relations; Content Marketing; and Marketing (2018 award here).
