Paul Greenberg invited me to one of his video channels to “analyze the industry analyst market” especially in a time of so much change.
Watch the whole conversation below. We cover a lot of ground:
- The history and evolution of industry analysts
- Where analysts have done well
- Where analysts are not leading the market: I share examples around 3 areas – vertical edge applications that have become viable in the last few years, localization in a dramatically changing global landscape, high payback Gen AI use cases
- How IT analysts compare to geopolitical advisers and energy and other vertical analysts who are handling even more volatile landscapes
- How vendor AR needs to itself evolve – get a balance between influence and intelligence they should expect from analysts
- Why vendor AR needs to evolve beyond 30 year old market categories and the “institutional” analysts
As Paul mentions we could have gone much longer. If we had, I would have worked in a few more comments
- I talk about the massive impact Gartner had in the 90s, and I should have also mentioned how influential they were in highlighting the Y2K challenge, including doing briefings for the US Congress.
- People say Gartner is $6 bn in revenue - 7X as large as when I was there in the late 90s, ergo it is even more of the 800 lb gorilla in the sector. Not really. It has consolidated the market – made 25+ acquisitions since. As we have seen with vendors like IBM and Oracle, past acquisitions are not a good indicator of contemporary relevance unless you invest heavily in changing markets and new products
- I should have mentioned a fourth dimension where analysts need to step up - accelerating customer migration to new architectures and covering automation in such migrations. It is shocking after 25 years of cloud computing how many customers are stuck with on-prem and custom developed applications.
- I highlighted some of the strategy firms in the 80s like Nolan Norton and Index and the Big 8 accounting firms which were influential in technology decisions. I should have pointed out today’s influencers include strategy firms like McKinsey, Bain and BCG, VC firms which are funding new market categories and many more new players
- In the section about globalization, he mentions how NetSuite was a leader in localizing for several countries. That momentum has slowed down just when it needs to accelerate. Localization covers the UX to include scripts (right to left, double byte characters), tax, sustainability and other compliance, local support and partners etc. SAP towers over other application vendors with its slate of countries supported, regional user groups and on many other metrics.
- Paul asked me somewhat rhetorically how analysts can change and lead. I say that was rhetorical because no one told him, me and others to start writing blogs or books, generate tons of video and social media content over the last two decades. But we did, and we should not need reminders to lean into new areas given the massive changes and turmoil we live in. No industry or geography is unchanged. There are plenty of market signals that analysts and vendor AR need to evolve – rapidly and dramatically.
