Analyst of the Year

The Institute of Industry Analyst Relations has just published its Analyst of the Year survey which you can read Click here. Firstly, let me congratulate David Michell , Senior VP IT Research at my old firm Ovum, for getting the EMEA Analyst of the Year Award and runner up (to Ray Wang @ Forrester) for the Global Award.

The top ranked practices were - as you might expect - Forrester, Gartner and IDC. But it was some of the other firms in the rankings that really surprised me. Boutique firms were extremely well represented in the upper echelons of the rankings. Firms like Redmonk, Freeform Dynamics and MWD which, amazingly, was ranked globally at No 8 in the Analyst Firm of the Year rankings. MWD was formed in 2005 by ex-Ovumites Neil Macehiter and Neil Ward-Dutton and have since been joined by Angela Ashenden and Bola Rotibi. Bola, who used to be at Ovum, was ranked No 8 globally and No 5 in EMEA in the IIAR Survey. I say "amazingly" as MWD is still a "four person shop".

In the Services Listings, NelsonHall was ranked No 5 (behind Forrester, Gartner, IDC and Ovum). NelsonHall has less than 20 employees (also including a clutch of ex-Ovumites). Their weekly NelsonHall Industry Insight is a really good read for anyone interested in the BPO/IT services sector.

The lists show that individual analysts often have more 'influence' than the companies that employ them. It shows how they can transfer that influence when they leave/change research firms. It also shows that small boutique analyst firms can have as much, or more, influence nowadays than companies 100s of times their size. Add to that the "Power of the Blogs" and you can see how the powerbase of the big, old established research firms is under greater threat today than at any time in their long history.