In today’s competitive technology market, IT industry analysts have become increasingly important opinion leaders, with influence over a range of user purchasing decisions as well as helping shape sales and marketing strategies for vendors and channel players. Building mindshare and momentum with these influencers is not just a matter of luck; it requires knowledge, insight…
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…
Over the last few years Current Analysis has gained increasing profile with telecom operators and vendors. The firm’s attractive and digestible research has won it many tens of thousands of users across its client organisations. As we first discussed in 2005, its immediate reaction to industry events has given it an almost unique space in…
Verisign is the most prominent gainer of analyst focus this month as it has jumped up 9 positions and is now ranked 17th. The firm has been recognized as the “Best Security Company of the Year“. However, apparently the biggest boost to its ranking has come from a series of research by Gartner on the…
In a meeting today, with a US start-up looking to win clients in Europe’s financial sector, I went over a number of the factors that new firms need to consider about industry analysts. There’s some strong general guidance on this topic, which outlines some of the mistaken grounds for cautious engagement with the analyst community….
The rising interest in influencer relations will dangerous disorient managers who see influencers as a new category, separate from and exclusive of existing audiences, such as industry analysts and the media. In particular, its would be quite mistaken to think that because ‘influencers’ are influential, that analysts and journalists are not. Sadly, that seems to…
Industry analysts, and those who want to understand them, should know about the annual Foresight course at PREST (Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology), part of Manchester Business School. Foresight stresses the scanning, scenario development and evaluation needed in forecasting technology. Lighthouse is keen to develop understanding of methodology on both sides of the…
Managers can learn how to accelerate the momentum of their analyst relations programme at Lighthouse’s seminar on Building AR Momentum. Lighthouse’s second-level AR course runs in the second quarter of each year: in Munich in April, in Singapore in May and prior to the Forrester IT Forum in June (Thanks to Marius for the photo…