Forrester reports on “Hidden Influencers”

I’ve just received a copy of Forrester’s new report on influencers. Written by Michael Speyer, it’s called Identifying IT Buyers’ Hidden Influencers. The report is available here (free for Forrester clients; available for purchase by non-clients).

You should read this report, if you’re at all interested in influencers. While you track down your Forrester password or fumble for your credit card, let me give a quick overview of the report’s findings:

• The key recommendation is that Influencer Management begins with knowing who the influencers are. No news here except that, as the report title suggest, many influencers are hidden. Most firms just examine their sales channels, and tack on press and analysts.
• According to the report, SIs and VARs have the biggest impact on sales. Again, this may seem obvious, but I’ve had a battle in the past with (a few) folks that position analysts as the most important influencers. Not so, according Forrester, the analyst firm. In fact, Speyer states that “While they (analysts) are easily identified and reached, the impact of their advice and perceived value is highly variable.”
• Ranking of influencers is critical. The report says that ranking “will allow vendors to understand the value of any given influencer to a buyer, which can be used to prioritize influencer management spending.” I agree. Speyer proposes several dimensions for ranking purposes, which is pretty close to Influencer50’s.

There are other important points in the report, which is in all an excellent summary of the subject.

The only slight beef I have is that the report refers to influencers in the context of SMBs. I assume that this is because Speyer usually researches the SMB market. But the report conclusions are equally applicable to enterprise-level buyers too. Indeed much of the research input and explanatory text refer to both enterprise and SMB buyers. I hope this point isn't lost on the readership.

Disclaimer: I was interviewed by Michael for the report and Influencer50 is listed as a source, along with Cisco Systems/Linksys, Citrix Systems, EMC, IBM, Microsoft and Symantec.