Our Credo series on AR principles has to address the most challenging pressure on AR professionals: how to say no to activities with little or no marginal benefit to the organisation. It’s a classic example of the triple contraints: time, cost and scope. Analyst relations managers increasingly understand the need to tier analysts so that…
We’re now half-way through our Credo series, which outlines the principles we seek to convince AR managers to share. Our fifth credo is the notion that analyst relations teams should be organized around the information needs of industry analysts, rather than being driven by firm structures. The first four principles discuss various forms of 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…
Our monthly series of ‘Credo’ posts aims to summarise some key principles for analyst relations manager. The third Credo stressed the way that messaging has to be both top-down and bottom-up. It’s provoked some off-line discussion that suggests than an on-line clarification will be useful. Many technology suppliers have an intellectual division of labour that…
Messaging develops in two ways: up from the grass-roots experience of the company, and down from the top-level idea. The third assertion in our Credo series is that AR managers have to accept that duality, and understand that it reflects analysts different approaches. The challenge for the AR professional is to develop consistency, both between…
Analyst relations is a marketing activity, in more ways than one. Analyst relations is normally part of the marketing department of companies. And, if marketing is the process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying consumers’ requirements, then analyst relations is the process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying analysts’ actual needs (and not only their explicit needs,…
In following on from my first Credo, I have received independent confirmation from an analysts that there is no win from being aggressive. And vendors should be vigilant about finding out how their AR managers and agencies are treating analysts. It’s the old one isn’t it – one satisfied customer has much less impact than…
Over the weeks since Gartner’s Symposium we’ve been comparing some of the conclusions from our IDEAL Audits, which allow AR managers to see the strengths and weaknesses of their AR activities. We’ve developed a Credo as a result; a list of core principles that we feel AR professionals should subscribe to. The first is the…