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Irrelevance doesn’t pay

So, now they are feeling the pinch.

Gartner (amongst others) are cancelling conferences, summits, symposia, you name it.

Why?

Times are tough, people are looking to save money and your ROI is incredibly obtuse.  You have become irrelevent to core business.

If you are/want to be a successful analyst, cut through the crap and start telling people how to save money and jobs, NOW.

Start talking about the techniques and technologies that will make a difference, and do it now, in clear, plain English.

I’m not interested in cool, sexy new technology that will pay back over the next 3-5 years.

Running a paid conference in 2009 is tough, very tough.  Budgets are tighter than they have been for a long time, and fripperies such as conferences are right out I’m afraid.

If however, you turn up on my doorstep to tell me about some really cool stuff I can do to become more efficient, fast – then I’m more than happy to listen.

P.S. – Cloud is NOT the answer to everything…

February 11, 2009 - Posted by analystanalyst | Uncategorized | | 2 Comments

2 Comments »

  1. Hello,

    If what you say is true, “ROI is incredibly obtuse”, why did research contract value increase? It is important to note that contract value increase when vendors are cutting contracts (typical during a recession) is clear indication that sales to enterprise IT clients increased to offset lower vendor sales.

    Canceling conferences reflects that enterprise attendees are under travel freezes for eveything, not just analyst conferences, and that vendors are cutting back all marketing expenses of which analyst conference sponsorship are a part. Very, very typical in a recession and changes once the recession is over. This has nothing to do with whither IT managers think that advisory analysts deliver business.

    As to “save money and jobs, NOW” that has been Gartner’s and other advisory firms bread-and-butter advice to enterprise IT managers since day one. For example, Gartner has a dedicated webpage to recession-related research that has a lot content on cost optimization.

    http://www.gartner.com/it/themes/economy/economy_100.jsp?prm=2_9_09_VLR

    In addition, if you had listened to Gartner’s earnings call on February 5th – as SageCircle did – you will have discovered that the one one bright spot in Gartner Consulting revenues for 2008 was the jump in Cost Optimization Services engagements that offset the typical decline in consulting projects (of all types, not just analyst firm consulting) that occurs in a recession.

    Vendors that ignore the breadth of work that advisory analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester are doing when it comes to advising enterprise clients to cut costs during this recession will find their sales opportunities negatively impacted and unable to respond.

    Cheers, -carter j

    Carter Lusher, Strategist

    SageCircle, Analysts of the Analysts and AR Best Practices
    http://www.sagecircle.com

    Comment by sagecircle | February 14, 2009 | Reply

  2. [...] This includes other bloggers with opinions about the analysts. In a very uninformed blog post, Irrelevance doesn’t pay, analystsanalyst said that analysts should “… start telling people how to save money [...]

    Pingback by AR & Recession - AR needs to help Sales deal with analysts’ cost cutting advice « SageCircle Blog | February 17, 2009 | Reply


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