It’s fair to say that in today’s sourcing marketplace there’s a degree of disenchantment, even cynicism, regarding analyst firms and their ability to deliver genuine business value. Look around and you’ll see no shortage of swipes aimed at the hegemony of the big traditional firms, whose grip on the influencer market and their ‘pay to play’ models, have caused many to become disillusioned.

It came as a breath of fresh air then to hear the views of prominent Analyst Relations professionals at the recent Kea AR Forum in London. It was clear from the agenda that AR increasingly sees itself as key to driving company success, acting as a catalyst for sales, marketing and product management, and providing a sounding board for corporate strategy. And it was evident that today’s enlightened AR practitioners are finding real value from certain quarters of the analyst market.

Yash Khanna, AR Director for Tata Consultancy Services in EMEA, and board member of the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR), presented a case study of how TCS derives value from its relationship with NelsonHall. He emphasized that TCS’ key business objectives are underpinned by the AR function, from its ability to identify new trends, to its influence on driving change, shortening sales cycles, and ultimately increasing market share. And TCS looks to NelsonHall to provide essential support in helping this happen.

Mr. Khanna described a value-chain of service elements that NelsonHall provides to help TCS improve bid success, maintain competitiveness, and stay ahead of the market – from competitor intelligence and market opportunity identification all the way through to support for new market entry and sales generation. In particular, Mr. Khanna identified the following as the most important aspects of NelsonHall’s service to TCS: 

• Greater BPO coverage than other firms
• Research methodology based on thorough vendor interviewing and a commitment to fact-based vendor and market analysis
• Direct and unlimited access to analysts
• Use of all-onshore analysts producing detailed, original, actionable data
• Understanding of the buy-side, with its ‘Speed-to-Source’ approach and NEAT tool
• Enterprise-wide access, rather than a ‘per seat’ model

At which point, anyone might be forgiven for thinking ‘that’s very well, but how does all of this help in real business terms?’ Mr. Khanna answered the question with a series of named examples where TCS have leveraged NelsonHall’s research and advice in the field, including:

• Two key acquisitions
• Two greenfield BPO ventures
• Go-to-market support for TCS business in closed book insurance, healthcare, reconciliation, as well as regional strategy support
• Support for TCS’s service/product strategy  business in the areas of pricing benchmarking, service delivery models, and utility & BPaaS

According to Mr. Khanna, this level of hands-on expert support has been instrumental in enabling TCS to grow its market share year-on-year, as well as increasing its market capitalization four-fold over the last ten years, enhancing its brand value, and boosting customer satisfaction.

At a time when analyst value is questioned more than ever before, it is refreshing to hear first-hand evidence of the genuine business impact analyst services can deliver. Only this week, one commentator spoke about the impending demise of the analyst industry. So long as companies like TCS continue to derive the type of business benefits described by Mr. Khanna, we at NelsonHall would beg to differ.