An overwhelming amount of research by multiple leading analyst companies means business leaders, especially software company leaders, find it hard to pick the right research to inform important strategic decisions. The main messages may be getting lost in a sea of endless perspectives that can change each year.
Organization leaders are making 100s of business affecting decisions every single day. So, guidance from written research or an analyst is now viewed as an essential part of the important decision process. Over the last 40 years many analyst companies have surfaced producing wave after wave of thought leading research and models and frameworks or theoretical ideas for businesses to consider adopting. For vendors, specifically, being in a Gartner Magic Quadrant has been known to increase invitation to RFP by as much as 900%.
Putting Research to Good Use
Today’s research, produced by companies like Gartner and Forrester is simply outstanding. Given the amount of data used to inform research on the future these analyst companies are producing an essential glossary of insights to have in your pocket. The challenge is that there’s so much research and so many frameworks and models, that change yearly it seems, understanding what research means, how it’s relevant, what you should do differently, and getting cross-organisation agreement to make strategy changes, is difficult. A strategy leader would make this easy work, but if you don’t have one, the c suite team are left to work together and figure things out, stretched already from their day job and having to hit business goals. And the CEO, although probably carrying the strategy responsibility, is likely getting the c suite team in a room each Monday to get the update, at best. The CEO can’t afford the time to define, own, execute on and keep running the strategy alone.
Then, there’s the slight kink in the chain that a lot of the content produced by analysts, and the associated guidance shared, has to scale and remain unbiased to ensure company profitability and credibility, right? So, a competitor is largely using the same research, tools and guidance. Which means there’s still a lot of work to do on that differentiation.
Practical and Hands-On Action
Making sense of the research is the linchpin in the value of decision making insights. Considered in a pragmatic way, that accommodates the realities of running a business in this incredible experience economy. More personalized, purposefully biased, actionable advice helps buy the right solutions or get ahead of competition. Building on the power of the insights provided by leading analyst companies.
As an end user customer you want to know the ‘real’ story as opposed to one that’s fair, sometimes, right? What point is the vendor missing. How does its future innovation strategy really translate in terms of your business goals that could be the difference between real success or another expensive mistake.
As a vendor you might want to be able to get ahead of your competition with insights or a roadmap that is more reflective of what competitors do well or do badly against overarching key themes. It’s not a feature benefits race. It’s a race to be ahead of the pack on a trajectory that end user buyers will naturally arrive at. Where your competitors wonder how on earth they got so left behind. Beyond the hype in the press and with a more real-world and practical strategy that the board will fully support.
Helping to Solve the Research Dilemma
Actionary will bridge the gap between compelling and very useful unbiased research produced by analyst companies with where the ‘rubber hits the road’ for your company. It will help translate published advice and guidance into the opportunity for your specific team, department or company. It will add a healthy dose of additional insight and perspective that matters, from advisors that led in the research for major analyst companies, to define the future of the market and your company.
Turn research into clear growth or innovation next steps and, as an important leader in the world, work better with, and get more value from, analyst companies.
The Author
Simon is a thought leading analyst and $multi-billion global company c suite executive, who’s a geek at heart. He thrives on inspiring audiences and helping companies to succeed.
