In this week’s episode, Eric Chemi is joined by former Gartner VP of Research Alex Soejarto and former IDC VP of Research Gard Little.
Tune in as these experts share their strategies for how clients can level up their analyst relations and maximize results by integrating with PR.
Click To Read Transcript
0:05 I’m Eric Chemi. And this is Politely Pushy. Welcome to Politely Pushy. I’m your host as always, Eric Chemi. Today
0:12 got a very different kind of episode. We’re talking about analyst relations with two former technology research
0:17 analysts right here with me. And I feel a little bit out of my element. So we’ve got Alex Soejarto, Guard Little with
0:24 experience at IDC and Gartner, the big the big names here in the industry. As a media reporter, I didn’t do that much
0:30 with analysts. I felt like that was a whole other world. When I when I heard analysts, I thought of Wall Street
0:35 equity research analysts, right? The guys that say, “Hey, the stocks to buy, the stocks to sell, that kind of stuff.”
0:40 So what you guys do is is is a little foreign to me. I hope my questions are
0:46 good enough to keep up with you guys. you guys are always the smartest people in the room because you you actually go through the details and you spend a lot
0:52 of time researching and analyzing what’s going on in the industry. So, I want to just start quickly with each of you. You
0:58 know, I’ll go to Alex first. How did you both get into the world of analyst relations because it’s certainly not the
1:05 kind of thing that when they do career day at school, right? They’re not saying, “Hey, come be an analyst,” right? It’s it’s a different kind of
1:11 mentality for that one. Yeah. Uh super interesting. So maybe um
1:16 to talk a little bit about my trajectory, I went to business school and then I joined uh PWC and after PWC I
1:24 joined Gartner and I spent 15 uh years at Gartner almost 16. Uh and then I took
1:30 a little break uh worked with some consulting firms and then I now joined
1:36 Bospar to lead their uh AR practice. Um and the way I joined analyst relations
1:42 was uh purely by chance uh because I had uh been talking to a lot of folks in
1:50 back then in the internet consulting uh space. I was thinking about becoming an
1:56 internet consultant in 2000. What does that mean an internet consultant? That’s literally when e-commerce
2:02 started. If you remember 2000 when e-commerce started who who would you be consulting for? Who
2:07 what are you consulting about? What would that mean? So that means uh u investors were
2:13 thinking about putting together a business. Uh company leaders were thinking about business models and what
2:21 their revenue model in this internet age would look like. And so I I learned a lot about the space and then this
2:27 position came up at Gartner to be the industry analyst for e-commerce and internet consulting. And I said I know
2:34 stuff about that. And that’s how I joined Gartner. And then uh my trajectory at Gartner was uh 15 to 16
2:40 years uh looking at services from enterprise software to business
2:46 intelligence and analytics and AI and guard you’re I know just retired
2:53 like this past month. You just retired. You’re living the dream. You’re in Paris now. So we’ve got all the time zones
2:59 across the Western Hemisphere here uh covered from from San Francisco to Paris. You just finished. But but how
3:06 did you get started? Take me back to the beginning. Yeah. So uh similar to Alex uh I was
3:13 also a management consultant at PWC uh and and was a consumer essentially of
3:19 the industry research from folks like uh Gartner and IDC. They were they were what helped me keep you know one step
3:25 ahead of clients basically. um you know so that was the initial uh connection
3:31 and um you know at uh at at that point in in my life where I didn’t want to be
3:36 in consulting anymore it was around 2007 uh I I looked into different
3:42 opportunities and one came along with IDC so uh I’ve been was there for 18 years focusing on services research also
3:48 similar to Alex uh mostly project-based services you know in and around um all the emerging service opportunities so
3:55 really the the connect with analyst relations has been through being an industry analyst which you know you you
4:01 asked about sort of financial analysts. We we tend to think of ourselves as one of the inputs to their buy sell hold
4:06 decision. So you know it’s a it it’s a you know slightly uh different but certainly connected to that world as
4:13 well. But that’s that’s how I got to uh uh to interact with all the folks more directly as an analyst through IDC
4:21 and yeah and I want to say that I invited Gard to this uh conversation because we’ve known each other for a dozen
4:27 years. I don’t know a long time right because as part of being uh industry
4:32 analysts we go to similar conferences we go to similar events uh that vendors
4:38 host or um industry uh you know uh things like at the SAP annual conference
4:45 you know yeah but you guys are the ultimate competitors right one of you is Gartner one of you is IDC like it’s a little
4:53 awkward so is it friendly how are you’re competing for clients you’re competing for business. You’re competing for
4:58 better research, but yet but you’re friendly. You’re here hanging out. What was that co-opetition like?
5:07 I never thought it was competition, honestly. Right. Because because uh you have separate client bases. The
5:13 businesses are separate and I I didn’t feel like we were ever like head-to-head,
5:19 right? We we were each looking at our own research agendas. That’s how I felt. I had my research agenda and I was
5:25 focused on that the questions of that I was interested in.
5:31 You know I think obviously there is some competition between the companies but the truth is at events it didn’t it didn’t feel that way. I agree Alex that
5:38 just wasn’t you know wasn’t a major factor in the uh in the moment of the of the events. Those those tended to be for
5:46 a wide audience of of firms and an opportunity to exchange ideas.
5:52 So, what’s a quick history lesson? Gartner and IDC, they’re the the, you know, the two big big guys. How did they
5:58 become so big? Well, how did they start? How did they come to dominate this area?
6:05 I’m happy to uh there’s, you know, a lot of lore at Gartner about Gideon Gartner starting um to some extent part of the
6:13 industry, right? So from what I understand he uh went to IBM early in
6:20 his career and saw a lot of the um early growth of IBM and then joined
6:26 Oppenheimer funds to be a financial analyst and that’s where he learned the
6:31 the the work of being an analyst and then decided hey I can do something
6:36 similar but different and then that’s when he started Gartner Group and um I believe the late 70s early 80s
6:44 uh uh and Gartner Group was he eventually sold
6:49 that to uh different private equity folks. It went public uh as Gartner Inc.
6:55 and it’s gone through a few different transactions um bunch of acquisitions.
7:00 So when I started at Gartner it was under a billion dollars in revenue. When I left it was about four billion in
7:07 revenue and today it’s close it’s around six billion in revenue. It’s uh pretty
7:12 huge um in a market and I was doing a little research before this that if you
7:17 look at different places the market research marketplace is estimated to be
7:24 between 50 to 80 billion dollars a year in revenue, right? Um and and what’s
7:31 interesting is people kind of say that he used things like computer chips,
7:36 counting computer chips that were being produced to then start to make estimates of trends in the marketplace, where
7:43 where are uh they being bought and sold, who’s using them, uh what industries,
7:48 uh and really starting to talk about the influence of computing power. And part
7:53 of it was really because of the force of IBM and knowing IBM well and then how that got into the marketplace.
8:03 So in terms of IDC, it was founded in 1964 by Pat McGovern. He was a MIT alum
8:10 uh and it was it was founded as a technology industry research company. I think the one of the first tasks was
8:16 counting IBM mainframes. Uh I don’t I don’t think there was a you know really good count of those and
8:21 there was a need for that. And so he he developed a business uh that you know that evolved into you know what is the
8:27 the tech industry research and also business business services research we do or IDC does today. Uh a few years
8:35 later, I think maybe ‘ 67, uh he launched Computer World, uh you may
8:40 remember back in the day, uh print magazines, uh and IDG, International
8:46 Data Group, then became the parent company, uh and it it included the tech
8:51 pub business, all of the different uh the things that came out of that. Uh as well as IDC. Uh Pat passed away in 2014.
9:00 Uh so around the 50th anniversary of the firm. Uh it’s been private uh you know
9:05 since it was it was founded but the uh you know the owners who uh you know who sort of inherited it at at at the time
9:12 of his passing didn’t want a tech pub industry research uh business and uh so
9:17 it was sold to private equity and and now it’s it’s uh it’s owned by Blackstone.
9:23 It’s funny you mentioned that because I remember I went to MIT and I had interviewed Pat McGovern a long time ago on my college radio show and and I
9:30 remember he talked about starting this business and he was trying to figure out how much to price it and and he had
9:37 given some in his head I think he had a lower number and someone advised him to say make a really really high number for
9:43 this research like $10,000 or something crazy and it made it seem more valuable. Oh, it must be really good if it’s that
9:49 expensive. And I remember he told me that story and this is going back like 20 25 years ago. So, um, yeah, that’s
9:56 that’s fascinating. But obviously very different now. We’re counting chips, counting mainframes, a little bit
10:02 different today. So, what what is it now? Right. Obviously, here at Bospar, it’s a PR firm primarily. A lot of
10:08 companies come to us, they want PR, they also want analyst relations. In some ways, they’re similar, in some ways
10:14 they’re different, right? You’re trying to get the attention of a certain stakeholder. How would you differentiate
10:20 AR versus PR? I’ll go to Alex first with that. Uh so the AR and PR um are about
10:27 messaging. Uh but I think doing AR really well touches on business strategy
10:33 of an organization. Uh because so much of what you’re trying to
10:39 communicate to analysts and that’s what analyst relations is, right? is um how
10:46 your business strategy affects a a customer’s ability to do their function
10:53 better. Um how your business strategy is uh in tune with the trends in the
10:59 marketplace, you know, and and how your business strategy is going to help your company grow within that context. So, so
11:06 it’s um a little bit different than PR where I’m not not a PR specialist,
11:12 right? And I think that that’s what’s good about me joining Bospar is we’re bringing together two very different um
11:20 sets of competencies. But I think PR takes the messaging and really brings it
11:26 to a wide audience. Whereas analyst relations is really focused on the analyst audience.
11:31 I think about it the analyst in a way is like the journalist, right? Hey, they’re going to write about your company. They’re they’re similar to a journalist
11:37 or an influencer who has a public platform to talk about your company so you’re still trying to get in
11:43 front of them. Write about us. Include us in your write up. Include us in what you’re doing. Obviously, it’s a
11:48 different kind of story that they’re telling, right? It’s more about business strategy and and technology as opposed
11:53 to maybe some event that you did, but but it it’s it’s got a very similar type of structure because you want that
12:00 megaphone. Hey, the person that has the megaphone, I need to get in front of that person. Absolutely. Absolutely.
12:07 You know, I think that’s I think that’s true, Alex. I mean obviously both are are involved with communication as a as
12:13 a critical function. I I tend to think of um public relations as being a little
12:19 bit more about disseminating the messages that the company you know wants
12:25 uh to uh you know the public to receive at large and it’s sort of more of a one-way uh you know flow of information.
12:32 I think analyst relations has a little bit more birectional flow uh to support the strategy that you talked about Alex
12:38 to support this idea that you said Eric you know that the the analysts you know in their role is trying to understand
12:45 the markets is trying to uh communicate about the markets and share their ideas. So, you know, I I think that uh there’s
12:51 a little bit more of a a a back and forth, I think, in the communication and in the need to understand the goals and
12:59 and roles that each of uh each of the people play in that. Yeah. And I think that there’s a lot of
13:05 constituents in analyst relations as well, right? So, so they an analyst
13:10 relations professional is communicating to analysts, but as you said, when you
13:16 create that feedback loop, you’re bringing some of that information back into the organization, helping folks in
13:22 product, helping folks in sales and marketing. Um, and so that builds into
13:27 constituencies as well as I think customers are a big consistent part of analyst relations constituency as well.
13:35 How do you measure success as an analyst when you’ve got your latest piece of research? Who do you want to read that?
13:41 Who are you trying to impact? What’s the the goal of okay, this this was a successful endeavor here?
13:52 I can start off I mean it it’s a little hard to summarize Eric in the sense that uh you know typically uh an organization
13:59 like IDC has different audiences. you know, one are the sort of syndicated subscription businesses. So, you know,
14:05 we we have clients who who buy access to us and our research. And so, uh, number
14:11 one job is to make sure that they, um, are reading it and are we’re accessible
14:17 to them to answer questions and, uh, go deeper if they’d like, you know, in in
14:22 whatever thinking or, uh, research topic that’s in that’s involved. There’s also custom which obviously is uh you know
14:30 not syndicated and and and as publicly available but follows that same path basically. So you know success is
14:37 obviously um in my mind engagement you know engagement with decision makers who
14:43 understand uh the perspective or at least understand the need for a third
14:48 party perspective on how the buyers and the sellers are meeting in the market whatever whatever market’s getting
14:53 covered right and I totally agree with that and I think part of it is that people get
14:59 lost in the reports of an of what analysts do right and I think
15:04 that’s the public facing thing That’s the one thing we see. So we just assume, oh that must be they must have spent all their time writing these reports,
15:10 right? But but the time is spent on the research doing the research, right? And
15:16 um I think that to me successful success being a successful analyst. Um
15:23 it like you said is the engagement part is being able to share insights with
15:28 vendor constituents or customer constituents or other marketplace constituents. Um and so that that
15:35 engagement can be from um presentations and events. It can be from uh clients
15:41 calling in and say, “I want to talk to uh this analyst about what they’ve written or what they’re thinking.” Or um
15:47 it could be custom engagements where companies call you in and say, “Hey, tell us where we fit in this marketplace
15:53 and what we should be thinking about.” Right? Um and that’s stuff that most folks don’t see about analyst what
15:59 analysts do. Um, and it’s really the fun part.
16:04 What would a typical day have looked like? Let me just say let’s assume I it’s maybe is it even an eight hour day?
16:10 Is it more like 10? Is it 12? Like what’s a typical day if you have all these different kinds of engagements going on? Just a sample of, here’s a
16:17 Tuesday. What would happen assuming you’re at the office? Let’s say it’s not a travel day that that you’re at a
16:22 conference or something like that. You know, again, I’ll I’ll start off
16:28 Eric. uh blend of sort of three different types of things typically. Uh
16:34 you know I would try to do my sort of more creative uh writing or thinking
16:40 earlier in the day. Uh try to carve out time for that. um spend um maybe a third
16:47 of my day on that and then kind of the balance kind of split between uh just speaking with with clients uh or
16:53 prospects you know in the in the spirit of what Alex was talking about trying to give them some additional insight uh or
17:00 you know new business development you know whether that’s you know trying to create uh more uh you know more
17:06 subscribers or build some some custom assets you know those those types of things I think that would be that would
17:11 be a typical non non-travel non event type day for for me.
17:17 Yeah, totally agree. Uh and but it’s it’s funny that you say that because when I was an analyst, um I was about
17:24 50% on the road. Wow. That’s a lot. That’s a whole lot of traffic bit, you know. Uh and so
17:33 when you’re in in the office and for me it was a work from home job actually. So
17:38 I I all my whole time at Gartner was a as a remote analyst. Um and
17:47 way pre-covid that’s going back a long time. Yeah. That’s going back a long time. It was on the telephone and email, right?
17:53 Yeah. You know, and and part of that too is I’m sure like Gartner had research communities internally, right? And so
18:00 that that was part of the day-to-day getting together with some of the other analysts and discussing um ideas,
18:07 throwing ideas around. Um one other thing that I enjoyed was talking
18:13 to customers, whether they’re vendors or buyers of technology. Um and that’s part
18:18 of the day-to-day too when you’re in the office.
18:23 And so in that world, right? If that’s let’s say what your typical day-to-day functions are, what makes for a strong
18:31 AR program, like what should vendors be doing that they’re not doing in order to
18:36 get into that work cycle of yours? In order to get your attention and you guys like, hey, you’re traveling half the time or you know, guard’s trying to do
18:42 his creative work, you’re trying to do business development, those kind of things. And then it’s like, hey, I’m a vendor over here. I want your attention.
18:48 I want to insert myself into your day. What’s the best way? I’ll start with you, Gard. the best way for them to be
18:55 respectful of your time but be useful and valuable so that you get something out of it, they get something out of it. Sure. You know, I think the best uh the
19:03 best examples of that are AR folks that really just go beyond pushing information, you know, from their
19:08 executives to to me to, you know, to the analyst uh or or just trying to set up
19:14 meetings, you know, and and truly trying to make a or build a relationship uh
19:19 that’s valuable to both sides. And that, you know, that takes a lot of time. And it it requires some trust building and
19:24 and the time is really required to sort of learn about you know what is it what is it that each individual analyst is
19:31 interested in and what’s the connect between that analyst and uh you know my
19:37 organization I mean you know IDC I don’t know the exact number but you know it’s probably up roughly around 1100 analysts
19:43 around the world you know so there’s a lot of specialization whether it’s by industry or geography or function or
19:49 technology you know so there’s a lot work for the uh AR people to do to
19:54 really get to know the the the things that are relevant to that analyst and to make the match to help make the match
20:00 between that and what’s relevant to their executives. 1100 is a lot. That’s that’s very uh
20:08 like you said you got to really slice and dice. So for example, if you’re one of those 1100 people, what exact niche
20:15 would you have been responsible for? because you don’t want to be overlapping and and you know conflicting with other
20:20 analysts. Yeah. I mean well the truth is Eric I mean with certainly all the digital technologies that are going on there is
20:26 there is overlap you know there are not 1100 discreet things right perfectly discreet but but within you know within
20:33 the uh the spirit of trying to answer your question uh you know I was a worldwide analyst so that had a slightly
20:39 different flavor than you know if I was an analyst in Europe or Japan uh this
20:45 type of thing or uh I was a services analyst also so you know obviously all of the hardware and software domains and
20:51 telecom domains would not be relevant directly uh in as much as the services
20:56 analysts really just look at the implementation of of these types of things. So you know it really was uh it
21:04 was a mix of all of those things and as I said in the at the top of the podcast you know I was interested always in
21:10 focusing on emerging service opportunities. So, you know, what’s what’s been emerging over the last 18 years, a lot of that’s been about cloud,
21:17 the the the creation of that as a delivery model. Um, you know, some of the technologies that uh that that fold
21:23 in under that and create the ability to transform businesses.
21:28 Yeah. Alice, what do you think about that in terms of what should vendors do that they’re not often doing in order to
21:34 get your attention in in a good way without, you know, blasting you, bombarding you, and and wasting your
21:40 time? Yeah. And Gard alluded to a little bit of this but each firm Gartner, IDC and
21:45 then you know the others out there have a an calendar cycle right so it you know
21:53 at the end of the year they’re doing the research so that they can create a predicts for the next year uh the
21:59 different teams that with those different specializations are doing forecasts so that they put publish uh
22:06 where they think the market growth uh and opportunities are going to Um, so at Gartner we had hype cycles,
22:13 right? So there’s a there’s a normal approach to that. Uh, then there’s the
22:20 um cool vendors report, right? And so that was sometime uh the first six
22:26 months of the year and then all these other reports and quadrant cool vendors
22:33 all this stuff. That’s all people want. That’s all they talk about. The ones that don’t know I just need to get into that. I need to get on that.
22:38 So I think part you know a big part of that is getting a real understanding of what both the the firm you know what
22:47 what they’re doing and then how the analyst contributes. So you so if you’re
22:52 looking at a specific analyst with a specific specialization, how do they contribute across the year to that and
22:58 how do does their personal research influence some of those things? And then
23:03 you know I think that a real value that AR brings is then strategizing on how
23:12 how to position a company within those that cycle.
23:17 Right? So, if an analyst is going to do a magic quadrant, certainly if you fit the criteria, how do you get in there?
23:23 But if an but if there’s a cool vendor’s report, maybe that’s the one that’s better. You know, if you’re talking
23:29 about a hype cycle, maybe there’s some technology that you want to bring forward to an analyst. If you’re talking
23:35 about forecast, maybe there’s something about your planning that would be really interesting. You know, uh you’re
23:40 building surveys every year in a company. Analysts want to hear about that. and some of those ideas could
23:47 influence the way that they think about the market, you know, results of those surveys. So, so
23:54 organizing that complexity, right? So, for me, right now, I’m just talking about Gardner, right? And so, now you
24:00 got to talk about IDC and Forester and all these other Right. Right. So, if you’re if you’re an AR person at a firm trying to get to
24:07 you, that’s just one analyst at one company. Now go do that for everybody
24:12 else and figure out what they need at what time in the calendar. Exactly.
24:18 Um and and just Alex, you know, further on that on that, you know, you mentioned like cool vendors for example, right?
24:23 Hype cycle, all that. A lot of people feel people that I talked to, they say, “Oh, you’re not going to get any great
24:30 coverage unless you’re a paying client. Like we’re too small. We don’t pay.
24:36 They’re never going to give us the time a day to and include us in these things because we don’t pay. What do you say to
24:42 that? Is that true? I go back to what Gard said about building a relationship, right? Um,
24:50 paying uh for a subscription gives you access. That’s really what it’s important. So then you can actually get
24:56 on and schedule time. You can find time and schedule with analysts. Right now, they may be busy and so you may not be
25:03 able to do it the next day, right? that’s that’s a different challenge, but that allows you to do it. But I think
25:09 building a relationship with an analyst then is the really the way to communicate and whether you’re a paid um
25:17 client or not, um that’s that’s really the important part. Yeah, I I agree, Alex. I mean, you know,
25:24 in in the IDC world, you know, there’s obviously uh very very strict rules about that and but the you know, the
25:31 truth is these businesses are very complex. I mean, you mentioned SAP before, Alex, right? You know, you can have a firm, you know, has 30,000, you
25:38 know, 40,000 SAP implementation uh practice folks all around the world. I mean, you know, you you you can’t you
25:45 can’t understand all the nuances of that business at, you know, at a single company in a 30-minute call. Uh, you
25:50 know, it it takes it takes time to develop that. And obviously, the more time, you know, that that both sides
25:57 invest, the the the more insight and the more value that they tend to bring to the table.
26:04 small startups versus large vendors, they need a very different strategy, right? In terms of
26:11 getting the right kind of coverage, right? Because you’ll be familiar with the big guys. You probably have some kind of relationship or you’ve written
26:17 about them. Here comes brand new startup. Hey, talk about us. We just raised hundred million dollars and we’re
26:23 either pre-revenue or we’re pre-profit and we have some revenue, but we think we’re going to change the industry or
26:30 we’re starting our own industry. You know, you always hear that one, too. What’s What’s the difference or what
26:35 should the difference in AR strategies be for a small startup or any kind of startup versus a big, large, and
26:40 established vendor? I I’ll go to you, Alex. Um I and I a specific a few specific
26:48 former clients come to mind, but um I think as a small smaller organization,
26:54 leadership needs to own the AR strategy. Larger organizations AR are leading the
27:00 AR strategy. And what I what do I mean by that? If you look at a company like Amazon, their AR team right now is
27:06 really amazing. They’re winning a lot of awards. You know, they have huge budgets. Uh they are in making
27:14 independent decisions. Um leadership is available to them. Uh and so the the way
27:21 that that AR team can influence is beyond really. Um if you’re a small or
27:28 uh company uh the we just talked about it the AR team doesn’t have a big budget right so
27:34 or any budget budget in terms of spending to go to analyst events and spending to go to
27:40 other events where analysts are going to be present uh subscriptions to all the services right uh paying for custom time
27:48 and with analysts so that that’s those are budget budgetary items um and so
27:53 there it’s really I think important in my mind that leadership knows what they
27:58 want to get out out of analyst relations. Um when I was working as an analyst in the business intelligence
28:06 space, uh one client here in San Francisco was always knocking on my door, always
28:12 wanted to chat about what they’re doing. Um and eventually it turned into uh
28:18 really covering their merger and becoming one of the first business intelligence and data housing consulting
28:24 firms. Right. What do you mean knocking on your door? I mean physically knocking on your door at home. Uh no, just sending a note saying, “Hey,
28:30 we’ve got this other thing coming. We’re, you know, we got this other client. We So not they’re not a paying client.
28:35 They’re kind of a smaller firm and they’re just kind of trying to get your attention on a regular basis.” They went
28:40 from a non-paying to a paying client, but they started but so they started as non-paying and they just say, “Let me just try to get in front of Alex. Let me
28:46 see what I can do to get get your time.” Correct. You know, and part of it is when they also see some of the value, the insight you provide, then they say,
28:53 “It’s worth paying.” Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, certainly the smaller firms are resource constrained,
28:59 but you know, analysts have a keen interest in, you know, being, you know,
29:05 one of the first to identify what’s new, what’s next, that’s that’s truly relevant. Um and I I think that the you
29:12 know you know be beyond the what we’ve already talked about I think that the the key for the more resource constrained organizations is to be truly
29:19 honest with themselves and their their analyst colleague you know clients
29:24 colleagues however they think of them you know about what is truly new or different you know that that’s uh I I’m
29:31 sure Alex would agree you know been a lot of meetings where you know firms have told us about some new
29:36 revolutionary thing that they’re doing and we say no Sorry, not not not not the case. You know, here here’s you know,
29:42 here’s the thing you didn’t know about. So, um you know, it’s it’s it it is possible and and obviously new things uh
29:49 you know, do come along. And I think focusing on those is really what the you know, what the um the way out of the
29:56s ort of resource problem if you don’t happen to be, you know, AWS with um you know, a much larger, you know, budget to
30:03 be able to attribute to this type of function. What is that like when a when a company says, “Hey, you know, we’re the first person to do such and such.”
30:09 And you’re like, “No, actually I I I talked to five other guys doing that or one or two or three.” What is that
30:14 response like? Are they just totally dejected and deflated or what what because I would be if I started a
30:20 company say, “Hey, I’m the first doing this and you say that like maybe I should have talked to guard before I
30:25 started the company.” I I you know my sense I don’t know Alex if you would agree but you know my sense is usually there’s a bit of an awkward pause uh you
30:32 know as they’re assessing this and then they usually say some version of you know thanks for you know thank you for
30:38 letting us know you know we’ll you know we’ll look into this. I mean you know the the the the benefit that these small
30:44 firms have is they can read and react to situations and change things quickly. And so as you said, if they interact
30:50 with folks who, you know, have a pretty good ear to the ground on sort of what’s going on in the market, um, that can be
30:55 that can be extremely valuable for them as well as for us as analysts, both learning about what kind of is right at
31:01 the edge, you know, whatever the market is that you’re covering and and how that could be valuable.
31:07 Yeah, absolutely. And and I think part of it too is um for the team at of
31:14 that’s presenting to analysts to have perspective around where they where they really fit. I mean it it is true every
31:22 once in a while someone will come up with a pretty interesting different idea
31:28 and I think that that’s part of the communications challenge is to really present it in a way that it makes sense
31:36 either like you know it we’re on trend because this is what clients want to buy
31:42 or here’s our vision because this is where the market is going right um and
31:48 and the truth is like guard said It’s very rare, but if you put it in context,
31:53 then others can start to see what it is that you’re really trying to build
31:58 because I think that that’s a lot of the challenge of of organizations is they have a really hard time communicating
32:04 where they want to go, right? You guys mentioned Amazon as an example, right? Winning awards, large team. Do
32:10 you have a sense, maybe you don’t, how many people are on analyst relations over there? I mean, is it like 10, like
32:15 100? Like what’s the scale that we’re talking about? I don’t know the numbers right now.
32:21 What does it feel like to you? What does it seem like to you? It is uh dozens. Dozens. Okay.
32:29 Okay. Does that’s a lot of people, right? Like think about that’s that’s bigger than a lot of the startups that
32:34 we’re dealing with in terms of like the total employees at the startup. Amazon has more AR people than the entire size
32:41 of some companies. Yeah. It’s Yeah. So for some of those organizations, you know, you you have a
32:48 marketing team and then an analyst relations team, right? So so for for a
32:54 so Amazon has all these industries, right? Uh Amazon web services. So for each industry they might have one or two
33:00 analysts. Okay. And then for then they have a bunch of technologies and for each technologies
33:05 they I’m sorry analyst relations professional. Right. An AR person for each of these. Exactly. Yeah. So that that’s how when
33:11 you think about the numbers that’s how it gets so big. Yeah, that’s true. And you know and also Alex they have uh folks who liaz between
33:19 themselves and their implementation partners uh and and their marketplaces where you know the implementation partners and
33:25 others can you know uh show their wares and and sell them. So it is it’s a multi-layered uh you multifaceted type
33:33 of business and so hence you know more more specialized AR professionals and
33:39 that’s another interesting part that you a question you uh asked earlier about the difference between AR and PR right
33:45 which is that as a small firm with a limited AR uh set of resources where you
33:52 might have one or two AR folks you are competing in messaging against this big
33:58 mass and It’s not just AWS. Now you’ve got Oracle, you know, and you’ve got Salesforce and then you’ve got SAP,
34:05 right? And and these are gigantic companies with um fairly good AR
34:11 resources. Uh and so that’s part of the the thing you have to think about is how do you get your message and how and to
34:18 Gard’s point, make your message a little bit more unique as opposed to just another, hey, we’re in the marketplace,
34:24 right? that that to me sounds very similar to the PR kind of fight like hey you’re competing against other smart
34:29 people they’ve got comm’s people too they’re trying to get in front of you know tell me if this analogy is wrong
34:36 when we talk to clients that are looking for media relations say hey you got to think about what gives a win to the
34:42 journalist the journalist especially in a declining newsroom environment right now they’re trying to keep their job right they’re trying to get the things
34:48 that are being measured against them like clicks engagement interactions are there stories being picked up. Are their
34:54 bylines getting attention? Are they getting audience? Because a lot of it’s easily tracked and management can go to
35:00 look at journalists and say, “Hey, no one’s reading your stories so you can hit the door, right?” When we need to
35:06 shrink, you’re going to be the one that shrinks. Is it a similar kind of feature here where in the journalist case, you
35:12 got to help them tell stories that’s going to keep them employed. is the idea here. Hey, the analysts are being
35:18 measured on on P&L like how much subscribers, how much, you know, revenue are you bringing in because your
35:24 research is good, right? So, is it similar where the the companies that talk to you need to give you something
35:29 valuable such that your research is good, such that people will keep paying for it because you’ve got a manager
35:34 above you saying, “Here’s how many people want Alex’s research. Here’s how many people want Gard’s research.” Is that a fair analogy from the PR world?
35:44 I I think it’s a fair analogy, but I think it it it it maybe isn’t the sort of the complete picture. Um you know the
35:52 uh at least from my perspective the uh you know the the need for the analysts to be relevant um you know you know
36:00 beyond just you know number of downloads or reads uh in terms of their true
36:05 understanding of the market so that they can be valuable as an advice giver. you know, again, you know, beyond the reports, uh, remember, you know, these,
36:12 uh, clients, whether they’re on the buy side or the sell side, typically want more insight than is in the document.
36:19 And they and they need they need to be able to, uh, you know, to evaluate you
36:25 in in the context of your the knowledge that you’ve gained, the experience that you have in the relationships with the
36:31 different players in the market. Yeah. So, I’m going to read your
36:36 question a little bit differently, too, Eric. please please which is how does how does an AR professional become successful
36:43 right and then and then how yeah how does AR professional become successful and I assume it’s because they’re helping you get some wins along the way
36:49 as the analyst well well yes uh but so if you think about it what guard’s saying maybe
36:55 influence right analysts analysts can show they have influence in the market and what does that mean um are they
37:01 being invited to discussions on air or presentations etc etc
37:07 Um are they being asked about uh who to recommend for certain technologies? Um
37:13 um are they uh a lot of folks reading their research? Right? Uh those types of
37:19 things are important in terms of creating analyst influence and um insight. So I think an analyst relations
37:27 professional needs to be able to deliver that to analysts. but also an AR prof by doing that then their organization
37:34 becomes more relevant within the context of what the analyst is doing and ultimately I think that’s the win that
37:40 you’re looking for as an AR professional which is um how much on the tip of their
37:46 the analyst’s tongue are you right how how much recall do they have about what you’re doing and how you’re the
37:52 relationship you’re building and communicating uh the stories you’re telling right uh the the ROI metrics
37:59 that you’ve got about your projects or your technology, the change that your technology delivers, things like that,
38:04 right? How is it changing now? Because there’s so many more influencers out there who
38:10 can be not fake analysts, but people can I can go on YouTube and start like, here’s my assessment of these companies.
38:16 I can go on TikTok, I can go on Twitter, I can do a Substack, I can do a Website
38:23 everybody out there can pretend to be an analyst on some level, right? And they’re just blasting whatever they want out. I mean, especially in tech, right? Think about
38:29 how many people say, “Hey, I’m going to review this such and such random product today and I’m doing it on my YouTube
38:34 channel and I’m getting thousands if not millions of views to do that.” So, how does that change the game here in terms
38:41 of the analyst role? Like, the role that you guys would have, you’re competing in
38:46 this sort of wild west of of influencers out there.
38:53 Uh so the truth is some of those folks are really good, right? Some are good. Yeah. Some are good.
38:59 Yeah. So that’s part of the challenge for the for the analyst uh marketplace is uh
39:04 some of those folks have access are doing research. Um but I think what’s
39:11 maybe different in in the role that I had at Gartner was I was working with a lot of vendors on their strategy. Um so
39:18 I I did work with buyers on the buy side uh but I also worked with a lot of um
39:25 consulting firms and and to simplify vendors uh which is a a little bit
39:31 different you know it’s a it’s a more of a B2B type of role that you have and so
39:37 creating the networking community uh that really feeds on itself so that it
39:42 uh really that you you build the intelligence about what’s happening ear to the ground that guard is talking
39:48 about is really really an important component of today’s analyst. I think
39:54 I I agree, Alex. And you know, one one thing I would add to that to try to answer your question, Eric, is, you
40:00 know, very very similar to the consultant world, you know, you can you can hang out your shingle and be a consultant by by yourself. Uh it’s
40:07 another thing to be in a network like PWC. I mean, Alex, you probably would agree with this. One of the benefits I
40:12 think and one of the one of the powers that uh you know when you when you have a thousand analysts around the world is
40:19 to be able to play on that to build uh communities of practice to be able to
40:24 collaborate uh it’s not all just 1100 folks doing their own thing and never talking to anyone else and so I think
40:30 the value of that and one of the things that we’ve seen over the years is that the the research tends to get stronger
40:37 when it’s interconnected you know if our if our software and our hardware research are connected, it’s typically
40:43 stronger. You know, if if our services research references what’s going on in the software markets, it usually makes
40:48 it stronger. And so I think that’s that’s one way that uh at least the larger firms or the folks who are not
40:54 sort of individual contributors, many of whom are very good to your point, Alex, I agree. Uh it it’s something that it
40:59 just, you know, it’s not able you individual can’t do, right? And and to that point, what’s
41:05 super interesting is uh if you look at Gartner today, um apparently there are
41:10 more folks looking at the Gartner peer insights, which is where customers go in and put a review of technology or a
41:17 company compared to the number of people that actually look at Magic Quadrants overall, right? And so the the type of
41:24 information that clients are looking for is also changing. Um, which isn’t just
41:30 an overall summary of the market, but much more kind of a a real live understanding of how things are going.
41:38 How do you think AI affects all this? Because I’ve talked to some analysts and they’re saying, “Hey, look, I can use AI to do so much of my research. I can use
41:45 AI to generate a 30-page research report. I can use AI to do so much of my
41:50 job that all of a sudden junior analysts might just disappear because the AI is my junior analyst. I think about it from
41:57 a a customer point of view. Oh, why do I need to pay for you? I can just type in my questions in AI and it’ll have read a
42:04 bunch of your stuff floating out there and generate some kind of answer that’s good enough for free. So, so I see AI
42:09 affecting a lot of the aspects input and output. How do you see that from from
42:15 having been on the inside? I I’ll start off. You know, it’s interesting, Eric. There’s there’s an
42:21 analogy to, you know, when the search engines came out, you know, the sort of same same thing happened in 1999 and
42:28 and and beyond with Google. Uh but in the in the context of AI and in particular, Generative AI, you know, when I
42:34 think about where it’s headed, you know, it’s early days, but um you know, those tools are very good at summarization.
42:42 you know, they’re very good at checklists and doing, you know, some of the tell me which vendor I should buy from.
42:48 It’ll give you an answer, you know. Yeah. You know, and and so obviously whether you’re an analyst or in AR, I
42:53 think you need to up your game and and realize that that, you know, there are going to be some of those types of tasks
42:59 that the generative AI technologies are very good at that that you should see to them. On the on the flip side, you know,
43:04 there are some things that uh these technologies at least so far are not as good at, you know, in terms of synthesis, you know, or in terms of
43:11 doing real, you know, understanding really complex context of what of what’s going on. And I and I think that that’s,
43:18 you know, that’s where the work is is is to be done. So if you take the AR example, you know, uh, you know, imagine
43:25 an AR executive could could ask it to, you know, summarize all of Gard’s research, you know, and and compare it
43:30 to, uh, you know, this other analyst or or or, you know, what are the overlaps or this this type of thing. That would
43:36 be, you know, that’ be an easy one instead of spending days reading reports, you know, to to do that.
43:41 Whereas um you know the the the things like synthesis or understanding the context in which the research is going
43:48 on you know oh well you know Gard’s really only interested in emerging service opportunities so you know let’s
43:53 not let’s not talk to him about you know these these things that have been around since uh the beginning of time.
44:01 Yeah. And I think part of it is too is um
44:06 there’s a lot you know apparently if you look at a lot of the LLMs and and then Gen AI and this doesn’t seem to be
44:14 changing they try to please the user right so depending on how you interact
44:19 with them they try to please the user which could mean that they’re not always telling the truth could mean they’re
44:25 making stuff up could mean that they’re creating a tone that the user prefers and I think that That’s what’s so
44:31 different than the in-person AR interact. You’re saying Alex is Alex is not using
44:38 a tone that the person prefers. Alex is not trying to please the user. I don’t care. Here’s the truth.
44:44 Yeah. No, but it’s not Alex. I mean, it’s there’s a lot of analysts, right? So we we Gard and I have known a lot of
44:50 analysts uh you know and and so there it’s it’s a whole different kind of
44:55 interaction when you really get uh to work with uh an analyst around specific
45:01 planning issues around specific challenges that you’re having um around you know how you’re launching a product
45:07 and the the best way to think about it in in a competitive situation. These are things Gen AI can’t help you with. Like
45:14 like Gard said, it can summarize like here’s what the you know product A is doing, product B is doing, product C is doing, and this is what you might want
45:20 to do. But the analyst can tell you like why it is you want to do all these things uh and why you should think about
45:26 this next step and you know this makes sense for you, right? So there’s so much
45:32 more complexity and I don’t know that that’s going to be addressed in the short term. Um and you know and that for
45:40 a good analyst to keep doing that is everything we’ve talked about you know keeping keeping their uh network and and
45:47 community strong you know building those relationships um understanding what’s happening in the marketplace
45:54 uh you know and and that’s what AR contributes right so AR contributes to that uh portfolio that the analyst
46:01 needs. What would you each say before we go? One thing that you’d love to see AR teams do differently going forward now
46:07 that we’ve talked about, hey, a world that is got AI. There are these individual contributors out there that that do get attention. The growth of
46:14 technology is it is it you know trillions of dollars and multi- trillion dollar companies now that are out there like it looks very different even than
46:20 where we are 10 years ago. So where do you see starting now here we are in August you want to see AR teams doing
46:27 what differently to sort of adjust for that future? I will say that um what I appreciated as
46:35 an analyst and what I try to do from an AR perspective is be relevant to the
46:41 analyst, right? And so that may mean communicating and engaging when it’s not
46:46 just about a report um and understanding what the analyst is thinking about
46:52 because even though they may have this specific research area, the questions and topics they’re looking at change
46:59 maybe quarter to quarter or year to year. And so being relevant in that perspective
47:05 in that context is the perspective that I think is important. I I agree with that. I would I would really just put a spin on what I said
47:11 earlier in the podcast, which is uh use these technologies to essentially make
47:18 the the relationship valuable on both sides, make it even more valuable uh on both sides.
47:24 You you agreed with each other on a lot of things today. Is there anything that you’ve disagreed with with each other
47:30 going back in your many years of knowing each other? any fights, arguments, disagreements, or did somebody say
47:36 something in here today that you thought, “No, no, no, he’s actually totally wrong.” Honestly, not.
47:41 Not in this case. No, I don’t I don’t think so. But but but also, this wasn’t terribly controversial stuff either. You
47:48 know, I I think in that sense, it’s it’s important, but, you know, it wasn’t something where there’s probably a high
47:54 divergence of opinion. Do you ever read one of each other’s reports back then and thought, “No, he’s just wrong. He doesn’t know like his his
48:00 opinion is wrong. Nope. I think I read some of Gard’s research a
48:05 long time ago, but I haven’t read any of research. Okay. I I don’t know that I ever said he’s wrong. I might have had a
48:11 different opinion, right? But yeah. Okay. I just wanted to just just checking just just probing to see if there’s anything lurking under there. I
48:18 you know, the disagreements make for for uh you know, better better shows. But I think you’re right. The fact that you’re
48:23 both confirming everything. It suggests like anyone who’s trying to do an AR program, well, like here’s a couple of analysts. This is what they’re saying.
48:30 They don’t disagree. So you probably want to listen to them because it’s it’s confirming things at multiple firms and
48:36 multiple sectors. Alex, you raise your hand. Yeah. But but it it knowledge feeds on each on itself, right? And so when when
48:42 the times that I have been in the same room with Gard, it’s it’s more about
48:47 like he’s asking a really interesting question. How am I interpreting what he’s asking or the answer that’s coming
48:54 back? And how does that pertain to the questions that I ask? Right? because I’m not always asking the same questions
49:00 he’s asking. I’m not interested in the same things that he’s asking, but what he’s asking may influence what I’m
49:06 thinking about. Right. Awesome, Alex and Gard. I appreciate we we got everyone from San Francisco to
49:12 Paris. We got these time zones to work. We got this to happen before the weekend. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I actually learned a
49:18 lot and I I hope I think people listening to this will think, okay, this gives me some ideas of especially if
49:25 you’re starting up a program, if you’re a smaller firm, get on the right footing so you’re not wasting a lot of people’s
49:31 time and money to actually start making progress in the right direction. So, thank you guys both for spending time with me today.
49:37 Great to be with you. Thank you to my guest and thanks for listening. Subscribe to get the latest
49:43 episodes each week and we’ll see you next time.