As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.
With the research on industry analysts and AR for our recent fiction book, The AI Analyst, I have been inviting a number of players from that world to present on how they see their position evolving. Sam Gupta presents on his boutique firm, ElevatIQ and how they navigate the fragmented market for technology advice and research.
He describes the changing market and the role the traditional analyst firms (like Gartner), strategy consulting firms (like McKinsey) and consulting arms of SIs (like Accenture) play – their strengths and their conflicts.
He then describes two dimensions his firm focuses on – solutions driven by size of buying enterprise and by micro-verticals. Needless to say, “Vinnie Vertical” especially likes the second focus.
As they grow, they will find opportunities to also segment the market by global region with solutions reflective of changing compliance requirements and regional nuances. Similarly, they will find opportunities to go into vertical edge applications, not just look at the market from the lens of categories like ERP and CRM which have been around for decades.
As Patrick Brennan, the analyst in our fiction mystery tells his colleagues “You guys are very good analysts. But you are mostly horizontal—you cover back office silos. The next opportunity calls for us to be orthogonal—by which I mean we have to be verticalized, globalized, and rearchitected for a world of applications that will be more analytical than transactional.” There are so many market niches for firms like Sam’s will get to explore.
He did not mention it, but Sam is also very active in podcast circles and social media. Its another aspect many boutique firms like his have introduced to the analyst market.
Nicely done in about half an hour.