Mr. CEO, you pay Gartner a huge amount of money annually to "tell you what is going on". Should we as your employees infer you are a moron?
Or should we infer you don't have time to dedicate to staying aware of your environment because of all the golf outings?
Or maybe if you listened to your own internal staff(sales, marketing, IT or even janitorial) you would have way more insight than these jokers.
Mr. CFO you pay an accounting firm to audit your books, but you don't really believe they do, yet you continue to keep paying the money to them year after year and pray you never get called on anything by the IRS or some lawsuit. Very nice, have fun with your buddies from Enron.
Mr. CIO you rely on so many different vendors and their ideas plus the notorious analysts with their mythical percentages and poorly futuristic views into the future to help guide your ouija board of a business plan. Don't you think it's time to step back and realize it's all fluff?
Loyal employees, well there are none anymore especially after this past 2 weeks, if they even existed since 2000, must truly question what goes on in the minds of executives or more so in the Analysts minds. I do too, but I know too many and few have shown any aspects of intelligence beyond CYA. IBM puts way too much into quoting these fools too.
For years we have read how Microsoft was so great. Then Vista comes and although they hailed it, they now pan it.
See this article from the BBC(usually love Microsoft), Nov 30, 2006
He points to forecasts by technology consulting firms like IDC, who predict that within one year 100m computers will be running Vista.
David Smith at Gartner agrees: "In 18 months you will see the majority of [business] computers running on Vista."
The same article says Let's not forget that Vista is late. Very late.
Instead of three years, it has taken Microsoft five years and 10,000 workers to get Windows Vista ready for the big time.
Now compare with this article from tech Crunch from april 11, 2008.
Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald told a conference audience yesterday that Microsoft’s Windows product is collapsing and must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.
Inside Gartner I bet they say "Dang, we got it wrong, but they still pay our fees, ROTFLMAO!"
Yes there are journalists with integrity, no question, but the analysts, it's hard to say what their agendas are and there in lies the problem.
So the next time you or your CXO ask for analysts opinions, just laugh and then type something up and say its from FBF Analysts team because everyone loves acronyms.
Look for FBF Analyst postings wherever FUD can be analyzed.
Keith, those reports provide insulation to the CxO's and others that read them. "Why did you install X?" "Because ... said that we would increase/decrease ... something." They remove a person from direct accountability. And, because the funding of those reports may not be clear, you can find one to support any argument that you may have. Cynical? Probably. But they provide a valuable service to the reader. :-)
ReplyDeleteA is #1, and a few years ago it had validity because so little was open and aware in some locations. But now with so much wired and wireless and information available everywhere why do these people still make money or get paid by others when the information is right in front of them?
ReplyDeleteYes new products may need reviews but does anyone really put any weight into these crystal ballers anymore than a guy on wall street selling you his money market fund?