As we have grown substantially over the past two years. We are often asked who (even) is GigaOm, what the company does, how it differentiates, and so on. These are fair questions—many people still remember what we can call GigaOm 1.0, that fine media company born of the blogging wave.
We’ve been through the GigaOm 2.0 “boutique analyst firm” phase, before deciding we wanted to achieve more. That decision put us on a journey to where we are today, ten times the size in terms of headcount and still growing, and covering as many technology categories as the biggest analyst firms.
Fuelling our growth has been a series of interconnected decisions. First, we asked technology decision-makers —CIOs, CTOs, VPs of Engineering and Operations, and so on—what they needed, and what was missing: unanimously, they said they needed strategic technical information based on practical experience, that is, not just theory. Industry analysts, it has been said, can be like music critics who have never played in an orchestra. Sure, there’s a place for that, but it leaves a gap for practitioner-led insights.
Second, and building on this, we went through a test-and-learn phase to try various report models. Enrico Signoretti, now our VP of Product, spearheaded the creation of the Key Criteria and Radar document pair, based on his experience in evaluating solutions for enterprise clients. As we developed this product set in collaboration with end-user strategists, we doubled down on the Key Criteria report as a how-to guide for writing a Request For Proposals.
Doing this led to the third strand, expanding this thinking to the enterprise decision-making cycle. Technology decision-makers don’t wake up one morning and say, “I think I need some Object Storage.”
Rather, they will be faced with a challenge, a situation, or some other scenario – perhaps existing storage products are not scaling sufficiently, applications are being rationalized, or a solution has reached the end of life. These scenarios dictate a nhttps://gigaom.com/end-user-products/btis/eed: often, the decision maker will not only need to define a response but will also then have to justify the spending.
This reality dictates the first product in the GigaOm portfolio, the GigaBrief, which is (essentially) a how-to guide for writing a business case. Once the decision maker has confirmed the budget, they can get on with writing an RFP (cf the Key Criteria and Radar), and then consider running a proof of concept (PoC).
We have a how-to guide for these as well, based on our Benchmarks, field tests, and Business Technology Impact (BTI) reports. We know that, alongside thought leadership, decision-makers need hard numbers for costs and benefits, so we double down on these.
For end-user organizations, our primary audience, we have therefore created a set of tools to make decisions and unblock deployments: our subscribers come to us for clarity and practitioner-led advice, which helps them work both faster and smarter and achieve their goals more effectively. Our research is high-impact by design, which is why we have an expanding set of partner organizations using it to enable their clients.
Specifically, learning companies such as Pluralsight and A Cloud Guru use GigaOm reports helping subscribers set direction and lock down the solutions they need to deliver. By its nature, our how-to approach to report writing has created a set of strategic training tools, which directly feed more specific technical training.
Meanwhile, channel companies such as Ingram Micro and Transformation Continuum use our research to help their clients lock down the solutions they need, together with a practitioner-led starting point for supporting frameworks, architectures, and structures. And we work together with media partners like The Register and The Channel Company to support their audiences with research and insights.
Technology vendors, too, benefit from end-user decision makers that are better equipped to make decisions. Rather than generic market making or long-listing potential vendors, our scenario-led materials directly impact buying decisions, taking procurement from a shortlist to a conclusion. Sales teams at systems, service, and software companies tell us how they use our reports when discussing options with prospects, not to evangelize but to explore practicalities and help reach a conclusion.
All these reasons and more enable us to say with confidence how end-user businesses, learning, channel and media companies, and indeed technology vendors are achieving more with GigaOm research. In a complex and constantly evolving landscape, our practitioner- and scenario-led approach brings specificity and clarity, helping organizations reach further, work faster and deliver more.
Our driving force is the value we bring; at the same time, we maintain a connection with our media heritage, which enables us to scale beyond traditional analyst models. We also continue to learn, reflect, and change — our open and transparent model welcomes feedback from all stakeholders so that we can drive improvements in our products, our approach, and our outreach.
This is to say, if you have any thoughts, questions, raves, or rants, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me directly. My virtual door, and my calendar, are always open.
