Question
How relevant will Analyst Firms like Gartner (with its MQ) and Forrester be in the next 10 years? Are new models necessary, and will new models emerge to benchmark and rate vendors/services?
Answer
Michael Wolfe frames the problem with nanometric precision.
The solution might well be equally precise: LinkedIn.
The new "companies" feature is just the tip of the iceberg of what LinkedIn could do with their enormous store of real-time data and automated analytics-based report generating capabilities on individual companies, people, whole sectors and the business economy at large, at a macroeconomic level.
I suspect LinkedIn, if it plays the game well, will completely disrupt the Gartner, Forrester, Hoover's, LexisNexis etc. It will even nip at the heels of the McKinseys and BCGs, by taking away the more commodity pieces of their market.
It won't do it directly, but by enabling a new analyst ecosystem through its API. You will no longer need the inspired, but ultimately made-up constructs like the MQ, hype cycle etc. You'll have much more robust, data-driven, real-time constructs. The companies that can invent, sell and consult based on such "live" artifacts will need fundamentally different competencies. They'll still need analysts and writers, but this new breed will work by very different processes.
Dachis is an example of this new breed of outfits. I don't have a clear idea about what they do or how they operate, but they seem to be up to something very intriguing.
If they are agile, the incumbents MAY be able to reinvent themselves in time. If not, they're toast.
The solution might well be equally precise: LinkedIn.
The new "companies" feature is just the tip of the iceberg of what LinkedIn could do with their enormous store of real-time data and automated analytics-based report generating capabilities on individual companies, people, whole sectors and the business economy at large, at a macroeconomic level.
I suspect LinkedIn, if it plays the game well, will completely disrupt the Gartner, Forrester, Hoover's, LexisNexis etc. It will even nip at the heels of the McKinseys and BCGs, by taking away the more commodity pieces of their market.
It won't do it directly, but by enabling a new analyst ecosystem through its API. You will no longer need the inspired, but ultimately made-up constructs like the MQ, hype cycle etc. You'll have much more robust, data-driven, real-time constructs. The companies that can invent, sell and consult based on such "live" artifacts will need fundamentally different competencies. They'll still need analysts and writers, but this new breed will work by very different processes.
Dachis is an example of this new breed of outfits. I don't have a clear idea about what they do or how they operate, but they seem to be up to something very intriguing.
If they are agile, the incumbents MAY be able to reinvent themselves in time. If not, they're toast.