In today’s cautious high technology industry, industry analysts’ recommendations affect half of IT and telecom purchases by businesses. Tomorrow I’ll be at Manchester Business School to speak at their corporate reputation research seminar to explain how most of the world’s largest tech brands use research to track their reputation within these third party influencers. At…
Analyst relations professionals will be discussing the rise of the boutique, with a panel of small analyst firms, at June’s IIAR forum. Since boutique is a French word, it’s worth reflecting on CXP (perhaps the best-known ’boutique’ firm in France) and the notion of a boutique (just a euphemism for SME, or must it reflect…
Is Ovum, one of the most successful European-headquartered analyst firms, at a tipping point? Its new owners, Datamonitor, have a few months in which to decide whether to renew Ovum’s reputation for broad and distinctive research, or whether to stay on the road that will lead to Ovums development into a simple diffusion brand, which…
This month Lighthouse will be running our annual Gartner webinar. It’s part of our Advisor Spotlight analysis, reviewing changes at the largest analyst firms. Investors have their own analysis, which is why the stock halved in value during the last year, from $28 in May last year to $14 in January. Lighthouse is not in…
The April 2008 meeting of the IIAR heard initial results from its Analyst of the Year survey. Although the data don’t show very strong patterns, there are some interesting trends. For example, some firms get both strong and weak scores for influence and quality. What’s interesting is the ratio between the two. David made the…
Our Credo series continues with the argument that consistency should be a compulsory consideration for analyst relations. Sadly, many firms fail to integrate their claims coherently. As a result, analysts get multiple and inconsistent visions of the corporation from different spokespeople. Complex businesses suffer most from this pressure. Sadly, those are also the businesses that…
In an episode of The Simpsons when Homer creates a vigilante group to track down a cat burglar, Lisa, concerned over their abuse of power asks: “If you’re the police, who will police the police?” to which Homer replies: “I dunno, Coast Guard?” Lisa’s question is that of Juvenal: qui custodiet ipsos custodes? And I…