IT managers have become ever more demanding in terms of the technology products and services they procure, and those growing demands extend to IT research advisory firms.
Nowadays, customer firms want more than just research and advice -- they want research analysts and consultants to take their work a step further and help develop requests for proposals and assess the ongoing status of projects, says CD Hobbs, the recently-named president and chief operating officer of Stamford, Conn.-based Meta Group Inc.
Hobbs, who until recently was a CIO consultant in Meta Group"s Executive Strategies practice, has held a variety of CEO, COO and CIO roles during his career. He spoke to Computerworld"s Thomas Hoffman Monday after the company reported year-over-year improvements in its third- quarter earnings and announced a number of executive departures and promotions.
What were areas of strength in Meta Group"s third-quarter financials? We"ve seen pretty solid growth in most markets and across most of our products. It"s not earth-shaking growth, but it"s solid growth. We"re seeing the benefits of distributors we"ve acquired and getting some of the overhead under control over the past year.
What were the drivers for the executive departures and promotions? Over the past several years, our organization has gotten top-heavy. We had some executives who were more removed from the market than they should have been.
Until three weeks ago, I had been supporting 25 CIOs. I"m pretty hands-on, and I like to have our executives involved in service delivery. We had gotten removed from that. I"ve removed a number of executives that I don"t have to replace. That says something right on its surface. As we continue to develop and implement our model, we"ll insist on managers who are hands-on.
What are the key factors shaping the IT research market? Customers are looking for more than comprehensive recommendations. What our clients are interested in is taking actionable recommendations and making them into efficient and effective executions. It"s about getting our hands dirty and taking executions on behalf of our clients. For example, (saying), "Here are the three ERP systems that are best suited for a company your size." Then we get involved in the RFP (process) and the bake-off and assessing the project under a one- or two-year cycle.
We"re working with the client more deeply on the investment than we had before. That doesn"t mean that we"re interested in doing the implementation. But I think we"re a viable element of risk management for a client.
How is this different from the approach taken by Gartner Inc., Forrester Research Inc. and other competitors? This is why I used Meta when I was a CIO client. If you want decision support, Meta is the group to go with. If you want raw research, you can use a variety of different sources. Meta Group was always the ally that I wanted in the midst of a decision. If I wanted my Meta relationship on the phone three times a day to make a decision, they were there. That differentiation is still there.
Are there other changes you"re planning to drive? We need to hone our ability to package our research into units that the market can consume. Making it available in meaningful packages that make them useful for the clients.
We"re trying to develop client-ready information from the various points of research we have. So the focus will be on that and trying to get all of our market ratios in line to make all of our operating units profitable.