Why Gartner: Why do end users as opposed to vendors work with Gartner?

The entire analyst model is changing, which is healthy, in my opinion. In fact, many of the best analysts have left firms like Gartner and Forrester to either start their own small shops or go independent. When creative talent makes a run for the doors, there's a message waiting to be heard....

This is an interesting time in the "industry," to pose this question. I've actually been engaged in discussions of this with a couple of major research firms.

Historically, analyst organizations like Gartner have provided end users valuable insight and information about vendors, industry trends, and critical issues. These users were looking for independent opinions, assessments and information. Historically, the sales organizations of the supplier companies served as the primary information and education source for companies. The analysts' informed and independent views were critical to helping provide the end users a more "complete" view of the alternatives.

Social media is changing all the rules. As mentioned, many great analysts are becoming independent. Alternatives like Focus provide other sources of information to end users.

The vast availability of information and social media creates great challenges for both the end users,analyst firms, and vendors.

The view of "I got it from the web (substitute blog, forum or whatever you want)" creates an illusion of credibility and accuracy to the end user. In reality, the words "Buyer Beware," are probably more critical now than ever--but more on the credibility of the sources of information they are getting.

For the analyst organizations, competing against a wide variety of credible free or near free resources, differentating their offerings becomes increasingly challenging. Information sourced "straight from the horse's mouth" -- other customers/users starts displacing much of the service the analysts provided.

For the vendors (though this isn't part of the question) it creates a great challenge. Customers and potential customers are informed--not necessarily well informed. It creates a need for "Seller Be Aware." The sales and marketing organizations of the vendors need to be aware (and concerned) that while people may be informed--they may not be well informed, they may even be misinformed.

It seems as though the vendors and analyst firms have a shared interest in getting credible, thoughtful, expert analysis highly visible and available to end users.

Social media is changing everything--much for the better, but not always.

For several years as a contract CIO I would end up canceling the Gartner relationship at renewal. I recalled all the years I was a subscriber and never could come up with a coherent argument at budget time, I just thought I needed it; a true complement to their sales staff.
One year I changed strategies approaching budget time and I gathered my managers together and asked them as a team to justify the $80k we were paying. What increased risk would there have been if we didn't have it and how did they use the service during the prior year. Dead silence.

So at that employer and every subsequent client the agreement was not renewed. I opened the discussion with one of their sales people by saying I would renew if he could bring me three examples of their reports which were scathing criticisms of a main line product or service. Result, never heard back and haven't renewed one since.

While attending a Gartner Forbers sponsored CIO symposium in Aspen, the key note speaker was Jim Collins. One of his stories was about a gravel company that ended their invoices with the phrase" or an amount you feel represents the value you received", I couldn't resist during the Q&A asking Gartner if they would ever consider pricing their service on what I felt I got from it. If looks could kill I'd be long gone. In retrospect it occurs to me that everyone should be asking that question. Buying because because of the brand is silly. Buy because of the value!

When you think about Gartner, and their ilk, they're selling a perceived insurance policy, that's nuts. There are so many unbiased sources for similar information that paying forward for the opportunity, whether you use it or not is a great business model if you happen to be Gartner.

First, let me say that I think that Gartner and other firms in this class add value, in a generic sense at the very least. What I won't say is that they are necessarily worth what they charge.

For many larger organizations, it gives them a certain comfort level to be able to make "safe" choices about the products and services they are interested in. The problem is that some companies will ONLY make purchases as recommended by Gartner, even when it is clear from some other source that an alternative to the Gartner suggestion "champion" would be viable or a better fit for that organization.

Their ability to define categories of products and services and to dismiss various players that they do not see value in (or, in some cases, understand) is completely unwarranted, but has been granted to them by executives in large enterprises who don't have the time or the understanding to pursue sufficient information to balance what they are getting from Gartner.

Certainly there are stellar analysts in their ranks, and I have had the privilege of meeting with a few of them. However, Gartner does not have a lock on the wisdom on any industry, and as a brand, they have been allowed to define categories of products and services as though they have some prophetic gift.

I have long thought that it might be very interesting to start up a firm that tracked the accuracy of the prognostications of Gartner over time. I suspect it would prove a fascinating study.

Gartner just needs to be one information source, not considered THE information source as so many do.

-ASB: http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker

The Gartner folks are most definitely smart and experienced, which benefits their clients. For customers, there is the notion that a Gartner recommendation is safe, just as IBM hardware was considered a politically safe choice in the past.

However, you should also not lose sight of the potential conflicts mentioned by Marcus Tewksbury in his comment.

(Had to re-post my answer due to typos; sorry!)

As an analyst who has spent years at competitors and complements to Gartner's services, including Aberdeen Group and Yankee Group, I would add two other reasons to Richard Stiennon's excellent response.

Imprimatur: For better or for worse, saying the equivalent of "Gartner said" or even citing a Magic Quadrant still carries a lot of weight among a lot of users (and vendors). This is largely for the reasons Richard stated, but also because Gartner is very, very good at marketing itself as a primary provider of credible advice.

Inertia: Whether or not Gartner is the reputable source of expertise it was years ago or deserves the imprimatur of its brand is veery much open to debate. However, especially for larger user companies with long-time relationships with the firm, it's just easier (if almost never less expensive) to stick with Gartner than to consider or explore similar alternatives. Of course, more disruptive and dissimilar alternatives such as Focus require a different calculus of comparison...but that's not the primary "focus" of Scott's great question. :-)

Michael Krigsman is absolutely right about the changes roiling the analyst/influencer industry, particularly where new technologies such as social networks are concerned. I strongly recommend an archived version of an audio teleconference on this very subject. Participants include Barbara French of analyst tracking firm Tekrati, Jeremiah Owyang of new-school analyst firm Altimeter Group, Carter Lusher of analyst relations strategists Sage Circle and analyst relations and social media expert Jonny Bentwood. It's an hour of insightful analysis and opinion. Here's a link: http://bit.ly/SocAnalyst. Enjoy!

Job security - 'Nobody Ever Got Fired for buying' syndrome - if Gartner gives it their stamp of approval, it it's generally considered a 'safe' decision.

Particularly in a job market like this one, that means a lot.

Gartner employs people who are experts in various fields with real indusry hands on experience and deep analytical and technical minds. I was a Sr Director at SAS and used alot of their work.

They review the work "products" and direction "strategy" of companies in their fields of expertise. Their review is done as a review for less technical/experienced people (and people who just don't have the luxury of "time" to do these exhaustive reviews)to provide an objective analysis of the various products and options that are competing in an area for the attention ($) of end users.

This should help end users determine what vendor and product is right for them as well as help others in the industry "benchmark" what competitors in an area are offering and where they are heading with their products and services.
The Gartner products or services that people use depends on how deep or what type of analysis they want, need or think that they want or need.

No one has everyone agree with their analysis of complex things, however, Gartner has done the best job in my opinion of doing this to date.

Markus: I must add a correction. While there is no doubt Gartner earns revenue from vendors it is not even close to "most." My data is old of course; it has been six years since I was privy to those numbers. But vendors have been cutting back while Gartner's revenue has grown dramatically, so I infer it is still true that most of their revenue comes from end user clients.

There are about 450 analyst "firms", many of them one person shops, so there are many alternatives to Gartner. And, as Michael Dortch pointed out, Focus is one alternative and part of the new model which could be called crowd sourced expertise. Focus is succeeding from my perspective. What do you think?

As a former software "vendor" sales person, we always cited "Gartner's Magic Quadrant" as many in here have said. They represent the important "third party reference" that is essential to prove what a vendor promotes as the value. "Buyers" use Gartner as the easy way to obtain third party validation and the heavy lifting in terms of researching what a vendor promises is true.. the problem here is the "relationship" between Gartner and the vendor made not always be as it seems...

Gartner's business model, from the very beginning, is to produce impartial fact based information to arm large scale enterprise technologists. The results is a better informed IT practitioner, more enlightened planning, and ultimately, a more competitive organization.