Ten Industry Truisms
As we make our lists and check them twice, there’s a lot I’m reflecting on this week. As we head into the season and celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Ramadan, or our holiday of choice, there’s much to be thankful for. I have the pleasure and privilege of running a company that is “of the industry we serve.” I’ve been saying for years that our purpose is to help fuel the human condition because data and information advances justice, health, commerce, education, and so much more around the world. Our industry is now firmly digital, software-enabled, and powered by — even one with — technology. Today, software-enabled content is the order of the day, and data is the underlying foundation that fuels our businesses and our offerings. We’ve been covering and serving this industry since late 1997. In some ways, a ton as changed, and in some ways, it hasn’t changed at all. Our purpose is still the same. And data and information still fuel the planet.
I am thankful that 99.9 percent of the clients we serve and companies we cover are simply good people of integrity. They believe in their purpose of the higher good, making sure their data and information and analytics-powered workflow solutions help make the world go round and for the better. Leaders trust us with their business challenges and openly discuss with us and their communities the issues they’re facing, the problems they’re solving, and the places they want to take their companies. Whether it’s about M&A, the prickly talent situation, or a new product and how it’ll do in the market, we get the questions and offer the ear and support that sometimes just says “you’ve been heard.”
Here are some of the truisms I’ve observed after all these years, based on our thousands of conversations each year, and the over $5 million we invest in original research annually:
1. This industry revolves around relationships. Call it what you want, but good business is about people, whether that’s our talent or our customers. The good leaders understand that purpose and passion drive experiences. Offering good experiences is what we’re about today, and part of a great experience is having relationships, which is the grease that moves our organizations forward.
2. Leaders will almost always tell us they waited too long to move on talent that isn’t a fit with their organization. When we self-evaluate, it’s one of the things we hear about the most. “I waited too long to… let someone go, hire a new leader, move someone to a new function when our guts says it’s true but our head talks logic.”
3. Software without content is good application software, and there’s plenty of it to go around. But software-enabled content and content-enabled software are where the alchemy is. Good data is the great foundation that powers it all.
4. As our industry has become more “tech,” the product management function has taken on an ever-increasing role as dance partner with data/content/editorial and engineering, the other two legs of the stool. They operate in concert with business strategy and the product execution or M&A that falls from it. Strategy and execution have to go hand-in-hand. One without the other is just like data without pipes (software).
5. M&A is the engine that fuels growth in our industry and always has been. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Our industry jives with GDP and GDP drives enterprise budgets, which funds us. That number is most often in the low single digits, and it’s not enough to please shareholders and owner expectations, so we use M&A to grow grow grow. It’s always been that way and most likely always will be.
6. Consumer expectations set the stage for where our industry is headed; so, too, does the financial information solutions sector, which is where the innovation happens. Follow the money: The bigger the stakes, the bigger the thirst for data and information. We call it water for a reason.
7. Our industry isn’t that great at innovation. We take a technology-first approach to things sometimes, and often our innovation comes through M&A. The largest companies have venture arms, but the small companies are mostly where the breaking innovation is occurring — to harness it, we buy vs. build. Most leaders can’t measure their innovation efforts and how they return. They look at process efficiency or new products, but they cannot quantify their innovation efforts or returns.
8. We’re not that great at channel management either. We see often clients taking a channel-first approach, too. Call me on this one — it’s too long to write about in detail.
9. Over the past 27 years, it’s been impossible to describe to friends what we do. Some of them still think I work for the CIA; the information industry remains invisible to the world. Say “pharma” and they get it. Say “tech” or “banking,” ditto. But say “information” and they look at you like a deer in the headlights.
10. That leads to my 10th and last truism: It’s still hard for clients to understand what we do. Some think we’re consulting. Nope. Some think we’re a reports company — nope to that too. We help leaders make great decisions by providing the critical intel they need; we package that up in a community-based membership that operates on an annual subscription and delivers four key things:
- Trend tracking and insight about what’s around the corner that will affect their organizations
- Operating benchmarks and critical analysis about key functional best practices to operate better and at competitive levels
- Competitive intelligence
- Knowledge about customers’ and end-users’ changing demands and the technologies that shape those habits
We do it all with a fact-based underpinning. Everything we do is backed by original research and a community of peers and an expert network to tie it all together. So you get the what, why, so-what, and what-to-do with every piece or presentation we deliver. 85% of our revenue is renewable, and the remaining portion is bespoke projects that are unique to each client’s business needs.
At the end of the day, we’re here for you. Enjoy the season, and thanks again for the pleasure and privilege of serving you, your teams, and investors. Let the data, information, and analytics economy continue to power the planet.