In This Issue:

Attend the Analyst Relations Forum

Tips for Increasing Analyst Awareness: An Interview With Gartner Research VP Laura McLellan

The Gartner Vendor Briefing Process Gets Easier

New Gartner Survey Policy

Other News

Keep Your Feedback Coming

Mark Your Calendar:

Wednesday, March 12
Gartner Analyst Relations Quarterly Call

11:30 am – 12:30 pm EDT

7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT

Visit the Vendor Relations page on gartner.com for the agenda and dial-in details.

The next AR forums will be held during Spring Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas, NV (April 6 – 10) and Barcelona, Spain (May 12 – 15). If you have suggestions for the agendas of these forums, please get them to us by March 30.

This issue of the Gartner Analyst Relations Newsletter provides more insight and advice on how you, the AR professional, can get more value from your Gartner relationship.

• Perhaps you’ve just become a Gartner client or you’re a long-term client who is branching into new markets and geographies. Who are the analysts you should be talking to? When and how should you be talking to them?
  
  Get advice on how you can effectively reach out to the analyst community from Gartner VP Laura McClellan including how to create a communications calendar that will increase analyst awareness of your organization.
  
  
• In our last issue, we advised AR professionals how to optimally prepare their senior managers for a Gartner Vendor Briefing.
  
  In this issue, Peter Kalinowski, who heads the Gartner Vendor Briefings program, explains changes to the Gartner Vendor Briefing process that has made it even easier.
  
  
• If you like to include Gartner analysts in your surveys,  don’t miss a summary of our new survey policy, designed to be more productive and ensure you get the opinions you need, when you need them.
  
  Get the details from Gartner SVP Ken Davis, who explains how the new survey policy benefits everyone.

Perhaps you’ve just become a Gartner client or you’re a long-term client who is branching into new areas that expand your domain. Who are the analysts you should be talking to? Just as importantly: When and how should you be talking to them?

Gartner Research VP Laura McLellan analyzes the marketing strategies of IT hardware, software and services providers. As one who takes calls from AR professionals every week, she advises: “Knowing which analysts you should be talking to is extremely important, but it can be tough to figure this out.” Her advice:

“Start with your Gartner account manager. Share the highlights of your company’s business plan—and your AR communications plan—with your account executive.

• “Which markets are you competing in today? Which markets are you entering or exploring for the future? What is your plan for communicating with key industry analysts (including those other than Gartner)?
  
  
• “Which emerging technologies and disruptive business models affect you? How is your target buyer changing? How are your competitors responding to market shifts? The more your account manager knows about you, the better he or she can help identify the analysts you should be talking to.”

“Define your market as broadly as possible. It’s especially useful if your account manager knows the adjacent markets in which you participate.”

• “For example, if you market server technology, where do you stand in security? What types of professional services augment your hardware or software offerings?  How do you position your solution to buyers in key vertical markets? 
  
  
• “How do you impact the application software industry? How are you responding to the movement toward software as a service? Are there specific applications (for example, banking or transaction management) that lend themselves well to your technology? A broader focus will get you on the radar screens of more analysts.”

Once you’ve identified the right analysts, how do you maintain the type of relationships that will create and expand analyst awareness?

• “Sync up with Gartner Research and Events schedules. If you want to be considered for reports such as Cool Vendors, specific Magic Quadrants, MarketScopes or an upcoming industry report, sync up with the Gartner editorial and event calendar (available on gartner.com).
  
  
• “Check out research agendas. Most analyst groups publish what they will be writing about in the ensuing year. The Dataquest analyst teams share details of their upcoming research two quarters in advance (also available on gartner.com). Map relevant dates in Gartner agendas to your AR communications plan.
  
  
• “Understand analyst schedules. Visibility into the right analysts' schedules is something every AR professional should be on top of, Every analyst participates in research reports and various events that are relevant to the AR professional’s role—and most will share their schedule if you simply ask. If you’re going to stay on the analyst’s radar, you need to know what they are doing, and when they are doing it.

“Most AR people don’t realize the lead times analysts require for both their research and presentations at both Symposium and Summit events. For example, presentations for events are due up to two months in advance of the event itself. If it’s appropriate for you to have some impact on an analyst’s presentation—for example, a Summit event that focuses on business intelligence, mobile computing or IT asset management—make sure you talk to the analysts about their internal due dates.

“Most technology providers maintain informal relationships with Gartner analysts. Yet adding a little structure to the relationship can yield much higher value.”

The Gartner Vendor Briefing Process Gets Easier

In the previous issue, we provided advice on how AR leaders can prepare their senior managers to maximize the value of Gartner vendor briefings. In this interview, Peter Kalinowski, who heads the Gartner Vendor Briefings program, talks about changes that make the briefing process even more efficient and effective.

By way of review, what is the purpose of vendor briefings?

Fundamentally, vendor briefings keep Gartner analysts up-to-date about a vendor’s products and/or services. And while that’s important, vendor briefings do a lot more. They inform Gartner research in all areas such as emerging technologies, disruptive business models or how technology is changing society and the workforce. Briefings that provide overviews of a vendor’s customer implementations or pilots also impact our research and our ability to advise clients. Overall, vendor briefings have broader application than people realize.

Why and how have changes in the vendor briefing process been implemented?

One of the biggest challenges AR leaders face is analyst availability. It’s especially challenging when a vendor crosses multiple markets and needs to brief several analysts at once. In response to this challenge, we’ve done several things:

• We’ve broadened analyst awareness of vendor briefings by giving our global research community access to all presentations and audio recorded briefings (worldwide) which are tagged to our internal knowledge management system. The vendor’s scheduled briefing is also posted to a public Gartner calendar that any analyst can review.
  
  
• It’s easier to submit a request with a briefing application form that is now available online and has been simplified for efficiency. (Click here.)
  
  
• The scheduling process has been streamlined by combining the polling of analyst interest and scheduling into a single step. Briefings are scheduled and confirmed immediately upon analyst confirmation. For time-sensitive requests, we typically provide tentative analyst availability within three business days.

What prompted these changes?

AR feedback. Both clients and non-clients provided ideas and input at our last AR forum on how they would like to work with us. They spoke and we took action.

How else has Gartner made it easier for vendors that need to brief multiple analysts?

We’ve given these vendor types a single point of contact, similar to the account manager model you see in sales organizations. Analyst relations managers that manage multiple analyst briefings asked for less bureaucracy. This change makes their life easier.

Can AR professionals expect this positive reaction to feedback to continue?

Absolutely. We have integrated AR feedback as a regular part of our AR forums. All feedback gets captured and prioritized for action.

New Gartner Survey Policy

We have seen the survey requests our analysts receive grow substantially over the past year. In order to accommodate this increased demand, we have put a policy in place to make the survey process more productive for both you and our analysts. Gartner SVP Ken Davis answers some questions about the new policy.

How does the policy improve the client experience?

Survey managers often seek information that is already available from previous surveys. In these cases, the new policy helps you get the information you seek much faster. Additionally, surveys often come from non-Gartner clients, which we appreciate. However, it is our first priority to make analysts available to paying clients. The productivity improvements of the new policy help us achieve this important objective.

What kinds of surveys does Gartner offer?

Gartner advisor-level clients conduct three types of surveys—with and without third parties. The new policy is organized around three survey types:

1. Surveys conducted by advisor-level clients (with no third party). Often advisor-level clients conduct their own surveys without the assistance of a third party. This represents the standard entitlement of an advisor seatholder; hence there are no restrictions.

2. Standard surveys conducted by advisor-level clients (with a third party). When advisor-level clients involve assistance from others, we ask third parties to use our standard tool: KCG’s analyst perception audit survey instrument.

3. Custom surveys conducted by advisor-level clients (through a third party).  In these cases, third parties sign a non-financial, terms-and-conditions contract with Gartner. The client buys an advisory seat or an inquiry block for the third party. The third party can also buy their own inquiry block. Data collected by the third party is shared with Gartner. It may not be resold to others.

To listen to an audio recording of Gartner SVP Ken Davis as he explains the new policy in detail at our December 2007 quarterly call, click here.

Other News

New Gartner methodologies brochure. We’ve just released an update to our brochure on Gartner research methodologies. Click here to download it from gartner.com or to request a copy from your Gartner account executive.

New! Customer Insights Add-on. Now AR professionals can get access to Gartner Customer Insights reports through the Gartner for Analyst Relations portal. Gartner Customer Insights reports give you visibility into 100,000 IT end-user inquiries every year, letting you know what are the most frequently mentioned topics and vendors. This Add-on is an optional deliverable. Please contact your AE to learn more about how you can leverage these insights on your customers you can’t get anywhere else.

Keep Your Feedback Coming

Many of you have provided feedback from the 2007 AR forums and this newsletter. We thank those that contributed and we want to encourage all of you to give us your suggestions and comments on how we can make our analyst relations programs even better. Click here to send us feedback.

New to the Research Team

Check out this sampling of new talent that has recently joined our team. For a complete list of analysts, click here.

Fernando Elizalde
Principal Research Analyst
Consumer Services

Fernando analyzes fixed consumer services in EMEA, with a concentration on broadband, voice over IP and Internet Protocol television (IPTV). Fernando has knowledge of and experience in the EU regulatory environment, IPTV, broadband and the deployment of Ethernet services in EMEA. He has held several marketing and product marketing roles for leading telecom equipment providers in North America and Europe. 

Eric Thoo
Principal Research Analyst
Information Infrastructure

Eric helps clients become more productive and competitive through the management and integration of data, knowledge and business intelligence. He has deep experience charting transformation strategies to improve business technology performance. Eric’s practical experience also includes the planning and implementation of IT strategy and road maps, process integration, data management, collaboration, enterprise mobility and the adoption of new and emerging business models.

Sanish Kundooly-Balakrishnan
Research Analyst
Enterprise Communications Applications and Infrastructure

Sanish analyzes enterprise communication applications and infrastructure, with emphasis in Asia/Pacific’s enterprise telephony and unified communications markets. At Siemens Enterprise Communications, Sanish marketed enterprise telephony, unified communications and contact center solutions.

Frank Ridder
Research Director
IT Sourcing

Frank analyzes IT services and sourcing with emphasis in provider selection and contract/deal development. He also advises technology providers in sales development programs and funnel management as well as national and international outsourcing sales and client engagement management. Frank formerly managed all outbound marketing programs and analyst and media relations for HP’s outsourcing programs in EMEA.

Teresa Jones
Senior Research Analyst
Software and Services

Teresa analyzes the enterprise software market, with emphasis in the application development and integration markets of EMEA. She was the lead analyst for enterprise applications at a U.K.-based analyst company and has written and spoken extensively on integration and service-oriented architecture.

Rene Millman   
Senior Research Analyst
Software and Services

Rene analyzes the worldwide IT operations market and the EMEA storage software market. As a senior editor for IT PRO, he covered networks, storage and security. He was an online editor for SC magazine, which covers IT security, and covered storage and communications for VNU News Center. Rene brings many years' experience as an IT professional in the financial services industry.

Carsten Casper
Research Director
Compliance and Risk Leadership

Carsten advises clients on information security strategies and technologies with emphasis on European regulations, privacy, certifications, anti-spam/spyware, network filtering and encryption. His 15 years of IT industry experience includes work with the European Network and Information Security Agency, where he advised the EU Commission and member states on security and anti-spam measures of electronic communication service providers, information security certifications and information security statistics.

Massimiliano Claps
Research Director
Government and Healthcare

Massimiliano analyzes government IT users. At IDC, he advised information and communication technology (ICT) providers on their government and healthcare go-to-market strategies. He also worked at management consulting firm Monitor as a case team member.

Kazuteru Nakajima
Research Director
Applications, Security, Risk and Business Intelligence and Information Management

Kazuteru analyzes enterprise architecture. He has a background as a system architect, system analyst, system planner, IT specialist, IT standards designer and promoter for the wireless and fixed-communications field. He has participated actively in enterprise architecture activities in global companies.