Your First 100 Days as a Gartner Client

If you're evaluating becoming a Gartner client, a hesitation might be around the issue of "ROI". If you are unsure exactly how to get value from analysts researching your market, keep reading.

I'll briefly walk through what you should do in the next 3 months to make the most of your Gartner subscription.

Step One: Assess

Tech CEO Score and Tech CEO Benchmark: Evaluate your company's effectiveness using objective peer-based performance standards, then determine where improvements will add value and establish a plan to advance the functions below

At a deeper level, each functional leader should complete an assessment for their team as well. Gartner has benchmarks for just about every function. For Tech Vendors, I recommend starting with Product Management and Tech Marketing reviews.

These tools help you see yourself, and develop a plan for when your priorities and your functional maturity are misaligned.

Step Two: Orient

Meet with the analyst teams advising your role and industry. This will likely occur via 2-3 different analyst conversations in your first month. Gartner analyst teams are structured by technology areas, the role they advise (such as the CMO), and the industry they exclusively cover. For example if you are the CIO of a healthcare analytics company you need to meet with a CIO advisor, the BI/AI team, and the healthcare team to fully understand the best way to leverage their insights. What questions should you ask each of these analysts?

1. What is your team's research coverage / agenda this year?
2. What can your team help me achieve for my company?
3. Based on my role/company/goals, who should I speak with next?

Step Three: Plan

An Engagement Plan is the roadmap for how you engage with Gartner. Based on your company's goals, what do you need to do in the next 3 months? Role-based advisors, analyst speaking with your buyers/competitors, or analysts sizing the market should be on your calendar. You should work closely with your Account Executive to build quarterly targets and monthly action items into that plan. Engagement Plans can take multiple forms: powerpoint slides, a shared google sheet, or formal action plans as seen in the example below.

For technology vendors, the Engagement Plan should include briefing relevant analysts on your offerings. Work closely with your Account Executive to ensure you align your product and service offerings to the correct analyst. You will have to request the briefing yourself, but your Account Executive can arrange follow up calls to get a debriefing from analysts to understand how they see the market reacting to your offering.

Step Four: Evaluate

After 100 days, you can look back at the decisions you were able to make. Were they more informed, or did you make them quicker? Did you identify new decisions that needed to be made, or decisions that you could avoid? Is your product roadmap more robust, or your marketing strategy more strategic? These are the questions that determine the ROI of your Gartner relationship. You'll likely find that the quantitative and qualitative benefits of these decisions are well worth the cost of Gartner.