As a purchasing practitioner, I never gave much credibility to analyst reports. They always seemed like a thinly-veiled pay-to-play thing where the vendor shells out some money and the analyst report is supposed to lead you to believe that they are a valuable vendor.

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About a decade ago, when I was responsible for selecting an eProcurement system for the company I worked for, vendors would present their analyst reports as if that was the last piece of the puzzle needed to seal the deal. To me, those reports were worthless.

In the past several weeks, I’ve come across several situations where I’ve really scratched my head about the analyst world. Perhaps I’ll blog about these stories at some point.

But today on Sourcing Innovation, Michael launched a post that generated a little discussion about analysts. The discussion really went off the beaten path from Michael’s original post. So I figured that I’d invite some of the respondents over here to discuss the issue further.

Here’s what I’d like to know…

From vendors (answer as many or as few questions as you would like):

Is the analyst world pay-to-play?

If so, do you end up paying for 100% of the time that you get mentioned? 75%? 50%?

What motivates you to do business with an analyst firm?

What value does being an analyst firm’s customer bring to your company?

What are the differences you see between the analyst firms and what made you choose to do business with one analyst firm vs. another?

Have you been mentioned in analyst firm’s reports WITHOUT paying?

If so, how do you think the analyst firm heard of your company?

From practitioners:

Has an analyst firm ever influenced a buying decision in your company?

If so, how?

From analysts:

What’s your story? How do you learn about the companies that you cover?

I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say!