Il mouse? Ha i giorni contati. A dirlo in un’intervista alla Bbc è Steve Prentice, analista della Gartner, società di ricerca e consulenza del settore ITC. Secondo lo studioso il noto “topolino” tra massimo cinque anni sarà sostituito da altri dispositivi di input  come sistemi di riconoscimento facciale o touch screen. “Il mouse è già morto per  alcuni ‘ambienti’ come l’home entertainment e i notebook”, dice Prentice che sostiene che il suo pronostico deriva da quanto stanno realizzando tante aziende dell’elettronica...LE CARATTERISTICHE

Gartner's estimates

The Cupertino-based company saw Mac sales rise more than 38 percent to nearly 1.4 million units in the US during the three-month period ending June, making it the country's third largest PC manufacturer behind Dell and HP, who saw sales rise 11.9 percent and 5.6 percent to 5.25 million and 4.167 million units, respectively.

Overall, Apple's share of the US PC market was up more than 2 percent compared to the same period last year. Total US PC shipments reached 16.5 million units in the second quarter of 2008, a 4.2 percent increase from the same period last year.

"Dell continued to be the market leader with PC shipments accounting for 31.9 percent of the U.S. market in the second quarter of 2008," said Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner's Client Computing Markets group. "Apple's PC shipments grew 38.1 percent in the quarter. The home PC segment continued to be the strongest driver for Apple, as well as sales into the education segment."

Apple edged out Acer, who saw sales decline more than 20 percent, by a little over 65,000 units. Meanwhile, Toshiba saw its own PC sales rise just 2.8 percent to 907,000 units, good enough for a 5.5 percent share and fifth place.

Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: Gartner

Overall, global PC shipments reached 71.9 million units in the second quarter of 2008, a 16 percent increase year-over-year. Apple, however, did not place within the top five manufacturers worldwide, meaning its global share of the market remains behind the 4.4 percent achieved by fifth place holder Toshiba, which sold a total of 3.14 million units in the second quarter.

"Mobile PCs continued to lead unit growth across all regions as the average selling price (ASP) of mobile PCs declined sharply relative to desk-based PC ASPs," Kitagawa said. "Economic uncertainties have hit PC revenues, resulting in steep ASP declines, especially in markets such as the United States and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region."

Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: Gartner

Holding on to its No.1 worldwide ranking was HP, which shipped just over 13 million systems, representing 17.1 percent growth and a 18.1 percent share. Dell followed with sales of more than 11.2 million systems for a 15.6 percent global share, representing 21.9 percent yearly growth. Acer (9.4 percent share), Lenovo (7.8 percent share), and Toshiba (4.4 percent share) rounded out the top five.

IDC's estimates

Slightly more cautious than its research rival, IDC said Wednesday in its own second-quarter study that Apple has finally broken through a symbolic barrier and will likely wind up tied for the third spot among U.S. computer vendors.

The Mac maker is said in the IDC prediction to have shipped just short of 1.33 million computers between April and June, which would give it the same 7.8 percent estimated American market share as Taiwan-based Acer.

Apple's surge signals a year-over-year growth in sheer units of about 31.7 percent, continuing a relatively rapid sales acceleration that began roughly during the company's switch to Intel processors.

Acer technically grew faster at 49.9 percent but was primarily helped by its merger with Gateway in the past year; if the combined share of the two is measured from last year, the unified entity actually shrunk by 28.1 percent, according to IDC.

Apple remains unlikely to challenge the top two vendors in the country, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, any time soon, as the two alone account for more than half of all US sales in the most recent results at 32 percent and 25.1 percent of the market respectively. The two are nonetheless growing relatively slowly at 12.1 percent year over year for Dell and just 5.9 percent for HP.

Toshiba lost share over the period, dipping from 5.4 percent to 5.2 percent.

Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Source: IDC

Gartner's Estimates

The Cupertino-based company saw Mac sales rise more than 38 percent to nearly 1.4 million units in the US during the three-month period ending June, making it the country's third largest PC manufacturer behind Dell and HP, who saw sales rise 11.9 percent and 5.6 percent to 5.25 million and 4.167 million units, respectively.

Thankfully, iPhone sales are helping drive touch based device sales. HP is advertising their Touchsmart devices and Dell is starting to make some noise about theirs, however PC turnover just doesn't happen that quickly.  Also at the end of the day the design paradigm for applications on these devices need to switch to take advantage of touch capabilities, kinda like what happens with processing power, it takes a while for those new processors to get out there in the marketplace, then to reach a meaningful saturation point, which then drives software creators to take advantage of the new power, but unfortunately unlike my example this is not just an upgrade in power but a whole new way of interacting with the computer.  It will require new user behaviors and understanding as well as new applications that harness the power of touch.  The good news is touch should be a lot more intuitive then the unnatural keyboard and mouse that we all had to learn.  

Time to chuck em?!

Ann All (with ITBusinessEdge.com) posted an entry in her blog today about the optimistic outlook for CRM sales.  She wrote, "Datamonitor, KensingtonHouse, CSO Insights and Gartner are among the companies with an optimistic outlook on CRM."  She then added AMR Research to the list.

I won't dispute the prediction. 

What I will say is that progress is painfully slow with respect to CRM meeting the requirements of salespeople.  Help me through this logic, please: 

• CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, right? 
• Sales, Customer Care, Marketing and Finance managers all need their reports from the CRM system to do their jobs managing customers, right?
• Who inputs a fair amount, if not most of the data?  Salespeople, right? 
• They have to be prodded, threatened, incentivized and shamed into keeping their information up to date, right?
• Follow me on this, please.  If the salespeople don't sell anything, there aren't going to be customers and customer relationships for a CRM system to manage, right?
• So, why isn't there anything in it for the salespeople?  In fact, don't most of your salespeople use your company's CRM system for little more than basic contact management? 
• So why does the task of keeping the CRM system up to date at the expense of their selling time make any sense at all? 
• Why don't the CRM companies design systems help salespeople sell more?  Because salespeople aren't their customers.  Management is.

What we need is more companies like White Springs and The TAS Group that understand the size and the impact of the CRM problem and are providing solutions.  And we also need CRM companies to start adding capabilities that will contribute to, rather than hinder, a sales person's ability to sell.  When that happens I guess we should call it CRM 2.0.

According to Gartner, Mac sales grew 38% year-over-year to edge out Acer/Gateway/PackardBell for the No. 3 spot in the United States after Dell (DELL) and HP (HPQ). IDC recorded slightly slower growth (31.7%) and has Apple still trailing Acer by 2,000 units -- not a statistically significant figure in a quarter in which Apple shipped an estimated 2.37 million Macs worldwide.

Gartner puts Apple's U.S. market share at 8.5%, up from 6.4% a year ago; IDC has it at 7.8%, up from 6.2%. Both reports are preliminary.

Apple still doesn't make the top 5 in either company's list of top PC vendors worldwide, although IDC's Loren Loverde says it came in No. 6. (link)

It's worth noting that while its competitors were cutting prices to boost sales in a tight domestic economy, Apple managed to grow faster while maintaining profit margins that are the envy of the industry.

And if you count iPhones and iPod touches as computers, says 9to5 Mac's Seth Weintraub, "you get a whole new ball game."

Below the fold: the charts from both reports.

Gartner charts courtesy of AppleInsider.

As we mentioned in Thinking about Gartner's Hype Cycle, the Hype Cycle is the most read piece of Gartner signature research by its clients, but it is often ignored by the vendor community because it does not directly rate vendors' products or impact today's sales opportunities. However, this is shortsighted as the Hype Cycle is influential on future IT strategies and budgets. As a consequence, vendors should be investing time into the Hype Cycle today in order to have an impact two to three years down the road.

There are three broad categories that AR teams have to work on: flattening the curve, speeding progress, and ensuring that their company is considered an exemplar for a particular technology, service, or technique on a Hype Cycle. This post will focus on the first category.

Flattening the Curve - One problem that vendors face when a technology or service is mentioned on one of the Hype Cycles is that the Peak of Inflated Expectations can get so high that there is a backlash.  This can completely derail a promising market before it has a chance to get down to and through the Trough of Disillusionment. In addition, a market can wallow in the Trough for much longer than need be, which of course negatively impacts vendor revenue streams. The answer to both problems is to flatten the curve, i.e., keep the Peak from getting too high and the Trough from getting too low.

In order to flatten the curve, vendors need to step back and look at the Hype Cycle differently. Rather than focus on the five named points (i.e., Trigger, Peak, Trough, Slope and Plateau), AR should be planning to change perception at the mid-points (click on the graphic to enlarge).

The first section then is Basic Education, where the vendor works to trigger the inclusion of its product/service/technique onto the appropriate Hype Cycle.  They must educate the analysts about its potential and where it fits into the market trends. Early on, there is a certain amount of priming the pump to get initial momentum.

Once the analysts understand the basic capabilities of the P/S/T and are starting to be a bit too enthusiastic about it, the campaign switches.  Now we are at the Reality Check phase at about half way up the initial curve. During this phase, AR is working to dampen excessive exuberance by narrowing the application of the P/S/T to a realistic set of applications and playing up the natural growing pains associated with a new P/S/T.

Just past the Peak, AR then switches to the Customer Success Story phase where the goal is to demonstrate real business value of the P/S/T when applied appropriately. The goal during this phase is to show how potential customers can obtain success if they are realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of the P/S/T.

Role of Competitors as Collaborators - There is one resource that probably does not come to mind when you are planning a Hype Cycle campaign - your competitors. Yes, there is natural tension between your company and other vendors that you wish to vanquish over the long run. However, it is in the best interest of all vendors to flatten the curve. This can accomplished through collaborating on how and when to communicate with the analysts. The more vendors that are talking to the analysts at the inflection points outlined above, and providing as many customer success stories as practical, the faster the P/S/T will slide through the Hype Cycle. When it hits the Slope of Enlightenment, then all the vendors can return to the normal competitive behavior.

SageCircle Technique:

• Plan a Hype Cycle campaign that focuses on key inflection points, not the primary named points
• Determine if it is realistic to partner with competitors on educating the analysts
• Build into contracts for early customers, that any discounts require agreeing to be analyst references
• Use a mix of interactions (e.g., briefings, inquiries, analyst consulting days) in order to maximize the opportunities to educate the analyst and manage expectations
• Monitor analyst opinion carefully to determine when to move from one phase to the next

Bottom Line: Vendors can benefit if they work to influence the passage of their product, service or technique through the Hype Cycle. The key success factor is to flatten the curve by concentrating on the inflection points.

Question: AR teams - Have you ever tried to partner with a competitor in educating the analysts?

Así lo indica su informe Cool Vendors de 2008

maat Gknowledge ha sido seleccionada como Cool Vendor (proveedor de referencia), en la categoría Platform and Integration Middleware (Software de Plataforma y de Integración) por la compañía Gartner, referente internacional en el sector de la investigación de mercados.

En el informe de Gartner, Cool Vendors in Platform and Integration Middleware, 2008 (Proveedores de referencia en Software de Plataforma y de Integración), maat Gknowledge es destacada como referente español en plataformas grid e integración de datos. maat Gknowledge es una empresa en continuo desarrollo tecnológico que busca los modelos más adecuados para la integración tecnológica.

La tecnología G se estructura en torno a la siguiente arquitectura:

Desde su constitución, uno de los signos distintivos de esta compañía ha sido su importante apuesta por la tecnología y la investigación orientadas hacia el desarrollo de infraestructuras de nueva generación. Este desarrollo se ha hecho posible a través de un equipo científico de investigadores vinculados a algunos de los principales centros de investigación, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional, destacando el CERN de Ginebra y el CIEMAT en España, entre otros.

La denominación Cool Vendor de Gartner viene a consolidar el liderazgo internacional de maat Gknowledge en el desarrollo de plataformas tecnológicas de nueva generación. Sus desarrollos tecnológicos permiten dar respuesta de una manera integrada a las necesidades de gestión de organizaciones e instituciones en el nuevo entorno del conocimiento. La tecnología implementada por esta compañía garantiza la interoperabilidad en Redes Abiertas, permitiendo el diseño y puesta en marcha de sistemas de información y gestión de la nueva economía en Red para diferentes organizaciones y en diferentes sectores. Específicamente, maat Gknowledge se ha especializado en Entidades Financieras, Administración Pública, Sanidad, Media, Energía e Industria y Medio Rural.

"...However, the accuracy of these numbers even inside corporations (given how deals are accounted for) would suggest that getting within 5 percent of actual sales would be very difficult, let alone having a high level of confidence that under 1 percent actually signified real market leadership. ..."

Rob then goes into an interesting discussion of the shortcomings of market share numbers and the methodologies used to create them. The article is well worth reading. It would be interesting - fun even - if more analysts engaged each other in the marketplace of ideas rather than having a monologue with clients.

SageCircle has long said that market share numbers from the market research analysts can provide interesting insights into the direction a market is going. However, relying on the numbers alone without understanding how they are created or the assumptions that went into their research can lead to the wrong conclusions. To address this problem we wrote SageNote^TM AR81 "A Consumers' Guide to Market Share Numbers." You can get a copy of this SageNote by contacting info [at] SageCircle dot com or 650-274-8309. The content has also been incorporated into the Online SageContent^TM Library, which is available to subscribers.

SageCircle Technique: Users of analyst market share numbers should use the following questions with analysts in order to be good consumers of the research:

• What is your market taxonomy with supporting definitions?
• How did you verify the vendor-supplied numbers?
• Do you footnote whether the numbers came from an audited or unaudited source?
• Do you footnote differences in the definitions of numbers provided by the vendors?
• How do you handle a situation when a vendor does not supply numbers?
• Who collects the data, a senior analyst or a research operations staff?
• If research operations, how was the staff trained?

Bottom Line: Users of market share numbers should strive to be informed consumers of analyst research. The best results are obtained by the having a relationship with the market researcher and using that relationship to obtain insights into the quality of the numbers. Consumers should be aggressive in challenging analyst positions and asking for background information on how they developed their numbers.

Question: Market research users - Do you rigorously challenge the analysts about their numbers and methodology?

Die Gartenarchitektur von Jacques Wirtz in den Jardins suspendus de Marqueyssac (in Vézac, F) hat Eric Sander fotografiert.

The Hype Cycle might take on additional visibility in October 2008 if Gartner and the Harvard Business School Press (HBSP) promote the new book, Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time by Jackie Fenn and Mark Raskino, as effectively as Forrester and HBSP did with Groundswell, which joined the BusinessWeek Best Sellers List on July 3, 2008. You can pre-order the Hype Cycle book or buy Groundswell from Amazon by clicking on the linked titles above.

Relevance - The Hype Cycle is of most relevance to vendors who use R&D and adoption of emerging technologies as a means of market differentiation or those who wish to be recognized as thought leaders in their markets. The Hype Cycle is much less relevant to vendors who sell mature products to lagging adopters of technology. While not relevant to current product selection, the Hype Cycle can be influential on longer term strategic decisions, especially for an enterprise deciding to adopt new technology sooner or later. Because of its impact on strategic planning and budgeting, the Hype Cycle can be either useful or a hurdle to vendor sales organizations as well.

In the next post, we will introduce a framework for when and how to provide input to a Hype Cycle.

SageCircle Technique:

• Carefully review the list of Hype Cycles to identify relevant targets (while there are 96 Hype Cycles as of July 6, 2008, this task will likely not require a lot of time and effort)
• Identify which of your company's leading-edge technologies or thought leadership ideas are or are not being covered on a Hype Cycle
• Conduct inquiries with the appropriate analysts to determine why items you think relevant were left off the Hype Cycle.

Bottom Line: The Hype Cycle deserves a lot more attention from vendors than it receives because of its impact on IT's strategic decision making. Vendors who sell to early adopters and fast followers should consider putting more emphasis on providing input to the Hype Cycle and leveraging it in the marketing and sales processes.

Question: IT managers - How do you use Hype Cycles? AR teams - What is the percentage of effort you put into influencing the Hype Cycle versus the work done on a Magic Quadrant?

This is particularly interesting as a number of the larger BI pure play vendors such as Business Objects and Cognos have been purchased by some larger software vendors - notably SAP and IBM. Some of the small BI pure plays have also been snapped up - Microsoft's purchase of ProClarity and Tibco's purchase of Spotfire.

There is also a useful section at the bottom which lists the strengths and weaknesses of a number of the vendors which makes for some interesting reading. Have a read of the research article.

• BBC NEWS | Technology | Firms 'miss' social site success

The difficulty of purchasing from a smaller firm is discovering them in the first place. Forrester and Gartner (as well as the vendor-centric IDC) have tremendous mindshare from tens of thousands press quotes and growing sales forces that drive their brand equity. Very few firms outside of the Big 3 invest in marketing and sales that would give them the market visibility to become a regular addition to buyer short lists.

The next issue is finding alternative firms that can deliver services that meet your needs. Many analyst firms specialize in advising the vendor community, so they are not appropriate for enterprise IT managers. Other firms have very specific topic or industry specialization (e.g., Redmonk on Open Source issues). So finding the right firms out of the hundreds of specialized firms can be a daunting task.

Some of the more interesting firms for both enterprise IT buyers and vendor market researchers are ones who have worked to broaden the topics covered so they would be more interesting to a larger pool of buyers, e.g., AMR Research, Burton Group, and Ovum. Unfortunately, these firms have not made parallel investments in marketing so many potential buyers think of these firms - if they think of them at all - based on what they were known for a couple of years ago (e.g., AMR=manufacturing software and supply chain; Burton=security and network directories, Ovum=EMEA telecommunications).

 SageCircle Technique:

• Use Google to search for analysts by press quote as a means of building the initial list of potential analyst firms to check
• Consider using to Tekrati's firms directory (free) and analyst profiles database (less than $400) to search for firms and analysts that cover relevant topics
• Vendor market researchers should check with the analyst relations (AR) team to see if AR uses ARchitect (by ARInsights) or AR Intranet (by Lighthouse) because each has a database of analysts and coverages
• Inquire with peers in other companies to see about which firms they use

Bottom Line: If your company is spending hundreds of thousands dollars on analyst services then it will be worth the effort to search out alternative suppliers of analyst advice and research. As is always the case, good basic purchasing procedures must be used to ensure that these analyst firms meet basic financial viability and quality requirements.

Question: Analyst Services Buyers - Do you focus most of your analyst spend with Forrester and Gartner? If so, why? What are the barriers to broadening your portfolio of analyst firms from whom you will purchase services?

This post is one in a series on the SageCircle blog about how buyers of analysts service, whether enterprise IT or tech vendors, can ensure they are might the right purchasing decisions. For those analyst clients needing much more depth than what is in this blog series, please check out the SageCircle AR Wiki where you can find a lengthy thread of articles that provide more depth and breadth on this critical topic including checklists and tools.

1. Using five rights to avoid a wrong when it comes to purchasing Gartner or Forrester services
2. Right reasons - Evaluate why you are purchasing analyst services
3. Right services - Align the services you buy to better match the reason for info or advice
4. Right firms - Search out alternative services providers that better match your reasons
5. Right price - Acquire those services that meet your basics requirements
6. Right usage - Drive usage of the services you buy to ensure maximize business value

Forrester and Gartner has have a variety of services that they offer at different price points. One of the products that both firms are Gartner is pushing their its sales forces to sell more of is the role-based products ("RoleView" at Forrester and "Gartner for Business/IT Leaders" at Gartner). During its 1Q08 earnings conference call Forrester's CEO even introduced a new metric, "roles per client," for financial analysts to track. Gartner's CEO updates financial analysts each quarter on the progress his firm has made in switching clients from traditional Core Research seats to the role-based seats.

Why the emphasis? Switching a client from Forrester WholeView or Gartner Core Research to one of the Gartner role-based seats is effectively a significant (up to 100%) price increase. The draw is for the additional "analysis" more suited to the person's role.  While a role-based seat might offer sufficient incremental value to be worth the price difference for some buyers, that might not always be the case. 

It is important for buyers of analyst services, whether enterprises or vendors, to carefully examine all the deliverables associated with services to select those that are best aligned with the buyers' needs. Too often buyers "over buy," signing up for a service with deliverables they won't use. For example, Gartner's Advisory (can do inquiries with analysts) Seat is much more expensive - up to 4x the price - than a Research (only reads published research) Seat. Why buy an Advisory Seat if the seat holder is only going to read research notes occasionally and does not intend to do inquiry?

This approach also applies when considering buying services from Forrester or Gartner, when an equivalent service at a different firm costs less. Buyers need to carefully analyze the deliverables of competing services to see which ones align better with their needs.

SageCircle Technique:

• Develop a comparison table that helps you break down services into constituent deliverables and compare offerings side-by-side (click here for example)
• Highlight which deliverables meet the requirements outlined in Part 2 as must have, nice to have, or not needed
• Identify which offerings meet your "must have" requirements
• Focus on those offerings that meet, but not exceed your must have requirements, accepting offerings that offer "nice to have" features only at no additional price

Bottom Line: Don't overspend on analyst services by buying services that exceed your requirements.

Question: Do you create comparison tables of analyst products before deciding which firms and services to buy?

This post is one in a series on the SageCircle blog about how buyers of analysts service, whether enterprise IT or tech vendors, can ensure they are might the right purchasing decisions. For those analyst clients needing much more depth than what is in this blog series, please check out the SageCircle AR Wiki where you can find a lengthy thread of articles that provide more depth and breadth on this critical topic including checklists and tools.

1. Using five rights to avoid a wrong when it comes to purchasing Gartner or Forrester services
2. Right reasons - Evaluate why you are purchasing analyst services
3. Right services - Align the services you buy to better match the reason for info or advice
4. Right firms - Search out alternative services providers that better match your reasons
5. Right price - Acquire those services that meet your basics requirements
6. Right usage - Drive usage of the services you buy to ensure maximize business value

SageCircle Technique:  My suggestion to IT managers is that you schedule an inquiry with your key analysts to discuss your current implementations from your key vendors.  You can ask the analysts their perception and provide real-world data on the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the vendors and products you use.

Sample discussion might include:

• What is your perception of this product (vendor) and on what do you base that opinion?
• How do my experiences with these products (vendors) compare to what you are hearing from others?
• What about your colleagues, do they hear the same comments?
• How would you rate the competitors?

Using inquiry to ask analysts about their opinion is commonplace for the firm clients, but offering your opinion with supporting data is something analysts rarely hear.  This can lead to a strong relationship with the analyst that can pay off later when you are looking for purchasing information.

Related Articles:

How to break analysts out of auto-pilot inquiry responses

Best practices for client inquiry execution

Bottom Line: As a client of the analyst firm you have inquiry privileges that can be used to gain opinions even when you are not ready to purchase.  Providing analysts customer data can build the relationship for future inquiry use.

Question: IT Managers - Have you ever called an analyst to provide positive feedback? Analysts - How do you ensure a balance of customer feedback that includes positive commentary?
 
Are you getting the most from your analyst contracts? SageCircle can help. Our strategists can:

• Evaluate the usage of your contracted analyst services and suggest ways to maximize business value from your investment
• Train your colleagues with analysts seats (e.g., Gartner Advisory and Forrester Roleview) through efficient and effective distance learning via webinar or teleconference
• Critique your upcoming analyst contracts to ensure you are getting the right services from the right firms to meet your business needs
• Save you time, money and aggravation

To learn more contact us at info [at] sagecircle dot com or 650-274-8309.

The article implies that Brown & Wilson's methodology is suspect in the context of other tech analysts.  According to the piece, "Brown & Wilson's approach is different from most established tech researchers. Firms such as Gartner and Forrester Research employ dozens of analysts who use detailed phone surveys of high-ranking tech purchasing executives as one of their research methods. Gartner's so-called Magic Quadrant reports typically show only gradual movement in companies' positions from year to year."

Hmm.  I'm not so sure.  As someone who has worked in tech and B2B marketing for years it's still not clear to me what methodology Gartner employs to arrive at its magic quadrants.  These things map companies on two continua: ability to execute and 'vision'.  The holy grail for a tech firm is to make it to the upper right quartile i.e. to be perceived as a visionary leader.

However the means by which companies make it onto a magic quadrant is not clear - and appears to be very subjective.  Early stage companies find it notoriously difficult - especially as access to Gartner analysts is very restricted if vendors are not actually clients of the firm's.  I have faced situations in the past where analysts are made available for a briefing but business development reps have sat-in. 

Of course, everyone has to make a crust - and Gartner has made quite a few billion of them.  But the magic quadrant is Gartner's cash cow.  It provides an easy to understand spatial relationship between vendors in terms of their technology and business acumen.  Therefore it makes the job of a CIO easier in terms of making vendor choices.  However, the number of magic quadrants has proliferated over the years making it appear that Gartner sees the product as a key money-spinner. 

Magic quadrants and black books must teach the wider market research and business intelligence community a more fundamental lesson, however.  If research can be condensed into a simple metric it's more likely to become useful and pervasive.  Too many research companies fixate on data rather than the simple message it conveys.  But in the case of most survey research firms they do at least have sound methodologies behind their findings.

Two prime beneficiaries of this type of mistake are Gartner and Forrester because they are often the only firms with any significant mindshare with buyers. They also have the largest sales forces knocking on doors. Because both firms are the highest priced - and raising prices further still - going with the well known brands as a default can be an expensive mistake. That is not to say that Forrester and Gartner cannot deliver business value at market rates on particular topics, but other firms might deliver equal or better advice for less money.

Buyers should carefully examine the desired outcomes for using analyst research and recommendations. For instance, if a CIO wants to ensure that her budgets for a industry specific technology are in line with others in her market, then going with a firm with a strong research team in that vertical is important. Another example is a vendor looking to expand into new regions of the globe. In that case, picking firms with analysts that actually live and work in key countries will be critical. While Forrester and Gartner might have some expertise in a vertical industry or say they cover a particular country, buyers will have to peel the onion to ensure that is really the case. You won't know that you have sufficiently peeled the onion if you do not systematically determine your reasons for buying services.

Influence versus decision support - Most end-user clients purchase analyst services to obtain information and opinions to facilitate their IT purchases.  Vendors purchase services to seek both information on products and market directions and also to obtain better access via inquiry for influence.

Too often vendors think influencing the analysts requires spending huge sums of money because analysts are pay-to-play. As a consequence these vendors tend to consolidate their spending with Gartner and/or Forrester to put as much money on the table as possible in order to buy love. This practice is neither necessary nor wise. Spending some money with the two big end-user advisory firms is a smart move because it provides client access that can be used by AR and spokespeople as part of the influence game. However, vendors need to spend only the amount required to buy this type of access. Vendors should not think that they are in an arms race with other vendors, competing to buy the best possible placement on a Wave or Magic Quadrant.

By dividing their budgets into two parts - influence and decision support - vendors can feel free to spread their spending among a number of analyst firms to get the best mix of information, intelligence and insights.

SageCircle Technique:

• Indentify the topics for decision support you will need over the next year (not always the same as last year)
• Analyze the type of information and advice you will require for that decision support
• Develop a weighting system so you can give some types of info/advice more priority than others
• Generate a scoring system so all firm responses will be consistently rated
• Create a separate list of the inquiry accesses needed for influencing.
• Create a formal request for information (RFI) or request for proposal (RFP) that will be sent to the analyst firms that incorporates both the types of decisions that will be made as well as your analysis of the type of expertise required

* For more in-depth information, review of contracts and advice on maximizing their purchases, SageCircle Advisory clients can leverage their inquiry privileges to work with a strategist.

Bottom Line: Buyers can avoid spending too much of their analyst budgets with the big brands by carefully identifying the reasons for purchasing analyst services. This information can be the centerpiece of RFIs/RFPs sent to analyst firms and built into purchasing decision frameworks.

Question: Do you send analyst firms formal RFIs/RFPs when you are purchasing analyst services? If no, why not?

This post is one in a series on the SageCircle blog about how buyers of analysts service, whether enterprise IT or tech vendors, can ensure they are might the right purchasing decisions. For those analyst clients needing much more depth than what is in this blog series, please check out the SageCircle AR Wiki where you can find a lengthy thread of articles that provide more depth and breadth on this critical topic including checklists and tools.

1. Using five rights to avoid a wrong when it comes to purchasing Gartner or Forrester services
2. Right reasons - Evaluate why you are purchasing analyst services
3. Right services - Align the services you buy to better match the reason for info or advice
4. Right firms - Search out alternative services providers that better match your reasons
5. Right price - Acquire those services that meet your basics requirements
6. Right usage - Drive usage of the services you buy to ensure maximize business value

This was already a great thing but today it was another great day as Roy Dewell the MRM Guru also requested to add the blog link to his website http://www.mrm-explained.com. Thanks Roy !!!!!

Marketing is a critical component of any business strategy. Unfortunately, it is not often given the importance it deserves. This is due to a multitude of misconceptions. For starters, it is treated as a cost instead of an investment. Using this stance, it is often one of the first things to take a cost cut when controls becomes tighter. Secondly, younger organizations hardly ever commit to long term campaigns with consistency, primarily because of lack of instant results. Along with a few other misconceptions involving lack of expertise and experience, marketing is often left on the back burner. If you are a startup or an upcoming organization, please bring this component to the fore.  Listed below are five steps to get your marketing strategy in place, with a plan.

1. Situational Analysis: Prior to starting any marketing campaign, it is essential you do a thorough analysis on the industry you want to operate in. Facts such as market share, growth, trends and economic policies are critical pieces of information. Next, find out about the entrenched competitors. Who are they ? What is their market share ? How fast have they been growing? Find out about major distributors in the industry, discounting policies, strategic alliances and any other information that may help you get a better understanding of where you may want to take a stance. To read more about doing a thorough situational analysis please click here.

2. Marketing Objectives: Every plan needs to have specific goals and targets that it wants to achieve. Use this section to plan what your organization's major marketing objectives need to be. This could include market share, customer acquisition, customer retention, website traffic or expected ROI on certain marketing tactics. These need to be thought through, and be strongly linked to major objectives set out in your business plan. To read more about setting marketing objectives please click here.

3. Marketing Strategies: This section is a major component of the entire plan. The marketing objectives outlined in the previous section, need to be translated into strategies now. This is best done by segmenting the market, and identifying areas that can be most effectively targeted.  Correctly positioning yourself in the market place, and ensuring a differentiation strategy to the entrenched competition will be an added help. To read more about correctly formulating marketing strategies please click here.

4. Marketing Tactics: After formulating broad strategies regarding marketing stance and positioning, we need to convert them into executable actions. These can be done effectively using the 4P's structure, which helps identify executable strategies for the product, price, placement and promotion. Each section can have specific strategies to help market the product/service and reach designated targets. To read more about specific marketing tactics please click here.

5. Marketing Budgets & Controls: The last section requires the marketing budget to be structured. This budget must be strongly correlated to marketing objectives and be allocated accordingly. There needs to be a strong focus on controlling costs and creating feedback loops to ensure that relevant information is being gathered, to help identify the most effective tactics. This budget must be treated as an investment and should therefore be pegged to ROI figures. To read more about marketing budgets and controls please click here.

These five steps constitute a simple marketing plan. The entire objective of this exercise is to bring structure to marketing activities, as well as to have clearly defined goals for what we expect it to do for our organization. Marketing is not limited to super bowl ads or billboards in Time Square. It requires you to be creative with the limited budget allocated. It must be used in such a way that activities are continuously monitored and tracked, and at year end, provide a significant ROI. Just make sure you stick with the marketing plan and do not bail out halfway through. Two things your plan should incorporate, consistency and SMART objectives. Best of luck!

Gartner Editorial Calendar for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes Don't forget that at the end of July, the Gartnerians are going to expand their editorial calendar to include planned research other than MQs and Marketscopes.

Forrester Planned Research This page defaults to showing only the planned research for you role. Click on "Show all documents," which is just above the listing. Also note that Forrester gives you the opportunity to download the list in an Excel spreadsheet Just another example of how Forrester is one of the most client friendly firms out there.

The451 Group Infrastructure Computing for the Enterprise (ICE) Service ICE is the only The451 Group service that lists upcoming reports.  Tip o' the hat to Service Director Rachel Chalmers (Twitter handle) who sent a tweet with the link.

Question: Do you know of other analyst firms that publish their editorial calendar? If so, please let us know - via comment or email info [at] sagecircle dot com -- and we will start tracking those links on an ongoing basis.

SageCircle Advisory clients are encouraged to schedule an inquiry to discuss the call and how to apply the insights to their specific situations.

Themes - Research themes are important organizing principles like topics, roles and industries. Gartner themes cut across all boundaries and most research organizations write themes for their perspective. Themes are coordinated by the Senior Research Board. Themes are usually new or emerging topics, though some are existing topics with new relevance or enhanced impact. You should expect to get questions about themes during briefings and anticipate analysts using themes as a point-of-reference. Listed are the existing themes with their "champions."

• Green IT
  • Championed by Simon Mingay
• Consumerization of IT
  • Championed by David Mitchell Smith
• Alternative Delivery & Acquisition Models
  • Championed by Caludio da Rold and Mark Margevicius
• Cloud Computing
  • Championed by Dave Cearley and David Mitchell Smith
• Modernization of IT
  • Championed by Dale Vecchio
• IT that Matters
  • Championed by Ken McGee
• Business Impact of Social Computing
  • Championed by Adam Sarner and Nikos Drakos

In response to a question, it was admitted that Gartner Research currently does not have a way to effectively communicate who are the analysts most likely to write about or influence theme coverage. The initial response that looking at the authors of theme special reports would show who are the lead analysts was immediately shot down as being too late to do AR any good, as the report after all was already written.  When it was suggested that AR teams ask their analysts about who is covering the theme, that idea was shot down because when AR has tried that approach in the past, the analysts frankly did not know. The Gartner team is going to mull over how to approach more effectively communicating who is covering a theme. SageCircle comment - Don't ask your primary analysts about who is contributing to a theme, ask the theme champions. They will certainly know which analysts are the go-to leads in each research area.

Forbidding use of research more than a year old - This was one of the more contentious issues during the call. The problem is that vendors are not permitted to use market share numbers or Magic Quadrants more than a year old even if the replacement research is late. When the Gartner team said that they are working on getting the analysts to be more timely in their updates, which would make this problem moot, the response from the AR professional was basically "we've been hearing this for four years and you have no credibility." SageCircle comment - This issue is a continuing thorn in vendors' sides. AR and their executives should put pressure on Gartner's executives - not the analysts or their managers - to change the policy or to enforce timely updates.

Research Methodology News

Research editorial agenda - Gartner plans on expanding the visibility about planned research publications. In addition to the current Magic Quadrants and Marketscopes calendar, special reports and key research notes will be added. It is not possible to list all potential research because "research happens," i.e., driven by current events and "ah ha's" based on vendor briefings and end user conversations. Gartner is targeting the end of July as the beginning. End user focused research will be listed by role. For the AR role product, the listings will consolidate the end user research, Dataquest research, and SWATs. Research agendas will be available for clients of Core Research and not just the AR role. However, the AR role will have additional AR-specific navigations.

Research localization - Gartner is piloting a project on localizing the research by regions and countries. This will be more than simply translating the English documents into the local language. What Gartner is aiming to do is to create unique research for a region or country as well as apply global research to a locality. The pilot project is going to be Germany. SageCircle comment: Gartner has attempted to do this several times since the mid-1990s. It is a very difficult task. If this is something that you think is important you should be supportive by providing ideas, feedback and country specific briefings.

Peer review - The peer review policy has been updated and communicated to ensure that all relevant analysts are involved. Parties to a peer review include subject matter experts, vendor lead analysts, regions, and cross-team representatives. SageCircle comment: Peer comments can have a dramatic impact on the tone, structure and content of a research note. Knowing who the most important peer reviewers are and then developing an appropriate relationship can provide AR with another tool in shaping published research.

Organizational changes

Jeff Golterman (jeff.golterman@gartner.com) replaces Aaron Yaverski as the head of Gartner's Analyst Relations (AR) program. I've known Jeff since he joined Gartner and he is a straight shooter. It is highly recommended that you set up an inquiry with Jeff to introduce yourself and establish a relationship.

Michael Yoo (michael.yoo@gartner.com) replaces Ken Davis as the head of the High Technology and Telecommunications Providers sector.

Andy Rosenblatt (andy.rosenblatt@gartner.com) is assuming responsibility for the product management for the Analyst Relations role product.

The research teams for Executive Programs and IT Management Strategies have been merged into an analyst team called CIO Research Group under the management of John Kost. The new team will continue to support Executive Programs and end user CIO/strategy product groups. There will be no analyst layoffs (response to a question). SageCircle comment: It is highly recommended that you schedule an inquiry with John to discuss the role of the CIO Research Group, how your decision makers might leverage its expertise, and how the analysts will want to be briefed by vendors.

SageCircle Technique:

• Schedule inquiries with relevant theme champions to obtain information on the research agenda, lead analysts, and contributing analysts
• Schedule inquiries with Jeff Golterman to establish a ongoing relationship
• Schedule an inquiry with John Kost to learn more about the CIO Research Group and how they would like to interact with vendors
• Put a recurring To-Do in your calendar to do a weekly check of the editorial calendar

Bottom Line: Gartner AR Calls are important sources of information into what is happening inside Gartner Research. AR professionals should mine the calls for important insights that can be turned into the basis for action.

Question: AR teams - If you do not listen to the AR call, why not?

Budgets are a necessary evil, they draw boundaries to ensure we know how far to go with the marketing plan. With entrepreneurs , the boundary perimeter is often small and limited. This calls for ingenious tactics to make full use of creative and deal making mindsets. The budget of a marketing plan is directly correlated with objectives set by the team. The progress towards those objectives, must be monitored constantly by using control measures. These measures act as feedback mechanisms to help identify each tactic's input. There are a few things I like to keep in mind when in the midst of setting budget and control measures:

1. Are our objectives and marketing budget in sync?: For a new business, it is important to outline realistic and attainable marketing objectives. I am all for optimistic and large goals, however, often these objectives are set without necessary resources allocated for realistic follow throughs. When discussing numbers, this is a good time to go back to objectives, and see whether attaining a 3% market share with your marketing budget, is a realistic target.

2. Have we committed more than 35% of our budget to one particular tactic, if so, is it justified?: I once had the misfortune of committing a large part of my marketing budget to running print ads in a particular magazine, specific to my target market. Unfortunately it didn't go as well as planned, since then, I have made sure that committing a large part of the budget to one tactic or promotional activity is based on substantial research.

3. Have we established tactic specific controls?: As entrepreneurs we do not often have access to a lot of funds in our marketing budgets. It is hence essential, to ensure that control measures are established for every tactic, to maintain monthly or quarterly monitoring. If you notice the tactic is consistently not delivering as planned , adjust the plan accordingly. Having control measures in place also forces the responsible individuals to provide constructive feedback.

4. What is our expected return on investment (ROI) on our marketing budget?: This is a complex topic, and has been written about widely. To keep it simple, we have to look at our marketing budget as an investment rather than a cost. Whenever we make an investment, we look for a certain ROI to justify it. We must do the same for our marketing budget. Keep tracking your investments meticulously, and see how to improve on your investment to ensure your expected ROI. This must be discussed with the finance people at the company. I have found, they remain impartial and are able to see the forest from trees.

A well defined marketing budget can be the difference between, a good and a great result. If you have not developed one for your company, there is no better time than, now. It is important to keep in mind, that funds are wisely invested, and that you have the ability to adapt to feedback along the way.

After all the research and strategizing is done,  the strategies need to be translated into executable actions. It is important to remember that without the effort that goes into correctly identifying strategies for your business, marketing tactics will not work. Their success is largely dependent on how clearly and thoughtfully the strategies have been laid out. Once you have established goals, objectives and marketing strategies based on segmentation, positioning and differentiation,  selection of marketing tactics can begin. The first thing that comes to mind about tactics, the 4P's ( Product, Price, Placement, Promotion ). The next thing that comes to mind is the lecture I had regarding them, then it becomes fuzzy.

I am all for structured frameworks, however, structured frameworks should enable you to develop executable strategies. If they become roadblocks, you have a problem. So keeping the 4P framework in mind you can devise tactics to drive sales and push your company further. These are four questions I like to ask when determining marketing tactics:

1. What is unique about our product/service that our customers should know?

For example, the MacBook Air did really well ( I really admire Apple's corporate branding efforts). They brought out an ultra portable laptop and when it was revealed to the world, it came out of a manila envelope. Such a simple, yet effective introduction, made this product the talk of the town.

2. What is our price point strategy and why?

As mentioned earlier, competing on price is a losing strategy, one which entrepreneurs frequently use unfortunately. The inability to set correct price points can make or break a business. Pricing strategy must be based on comprehensive market research and comparison. Take a look at the competition,  then take a decision on how you want to be perceived by the market. Use pricing as a strategy to help slot you in a particular segment in the customers mind.

3. How are we going to get our product/service to our target segment?

According to objectives regarding volume, there needs to be identification of channels, to reach those targets. Do a thorough analysis of available channels of distribution, target those which can be used most cost effectively. However, keep in mind, the more channels you open up, the more resources required. Choose your channels carefully, focus on developing them to reach their potential.

4. How best can we promote our product/service to our target audience?

This is the segment that entrepreneurs need to get creative about. We usually don't have large marketing budgets at our disposal, hence need to come up with ingenious ways to promote ourselves. One book which I would recommend to entrepreneurs with tight marketing budgets is "Guerrilla Marketing" by Jay Conrad Levinson. It is full of ideas which can be used by organizations on tight budgets.

These questions should help spark conversation,  and get you to think about marketing tactics to be used. Remember, remain focused on bottom line objectives, it is easy to slip into heated discussions about specific tactics and forget about end goals. Marketing can be simple and complex, it is advisable that at the onset of your entrepreneurial ventures, to keep things simple!