{"id":979,"date":"2015-11-07T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-07T13:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/hfs-uberize_110715\/"},"modified":"2015-11-07T13:34:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-07T13:34:00","slug":"hfs-uberize_110715","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/","title":{"rendered":"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, I know I promised to savage anyone who used the term “uberize” to describe a disruptive business model, but having spent a fascinating day at the ARForum<\/a> in London last week, it really struck me that uberization<\/em> is pretty much what HfS has done to the traditional IT analyst industry, when you look at the results<\/a> of what ~1000 consumers of IT research are saying:<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n

Click to read the full article over at Influencer Relations<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While you can’t really do a direct apples-t0-apples comparison between the Uber and HfS business models, what we have in common is the fact we’ve both leveraged digital platforms to disrupt traditional, slow-moving industries – and with limited infrastructure and resources.<\/p>\n

So why is HfS the “Uber” of the analyst industry?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

1. We use digital technology, the web and social as our customer platform.<\/strong> At HfS, we do not need to hire armies of expensive, aggressive sales people to grow our customer base. We use our webplatform<\/a>, a host of digital content and marketing apps, our blog and our social communities to bring the customers to us –\u00a0<\/em>at a fraction of the cost.<\/p>\n

2. We don’t view “customers” as entities that have<\/em> to give us money.<\/strong> Do Facebook, Twitter and LI fail to influence people because they are free<\/em>? It’s the same with research – why does everyone have to pay money<\/em> to be considered “influenced”. \u00a0We get over a million visits to our stuff every year, well over 100,000 subscribers to our blogs and research and 15-20k pieces of research being downloaded each month. \u00a0These are our<\/em> customers. \u00a0We just don’t believe in making everyone pay-to-play – we are of a size where we are proud\u00a0to share what we do without slapping a huge paywall in front of the world. That’s why we are already the #3 firm in the industry in terms of reach and influence, after only 6 years in existence.<\/p>\n

3. Freemium research, that is compelling and easy to access, is what gets read today.<\/strong> \u00a0Most people tend to read only research when it’s slapped in front of them, that is digestible and compelling. \u00a0Trying to navigate your way behind an expensively assembled firewall and search engine pretty much loses most people before<\/em> they even think about trying to reset their password. \u00a0I recall when I was last working for a “legacy” analyst firm that we were lucky to get more than 15 people downloading a report. \u00a0Today we have in excess of 20,000 reading them. The difference is, simply, off the scale.<\/p>\n

4. The revenue model is different from the incumbents.<\/strong> We don’t believe most people really want to pay for libraries of reports any more. \u00a0They will, however, pay for benchmark and pricing data, competitive analyses and access to awesome analysts, who are fun to talk with and easy to get hold of. \u00a0We also mix access to our massive global community (both physical and electronic) with the research access. \u00a0Our buyer clients can come to our industry-leading quarterly summits, while vendor clients can have sponsorship privileges. \u00a0We believe peer networking and sharing the dynamics of thousands of the global community as a critical part of the Research 2.0<\/a> process.<\/p>\n

\"Phil_ARForum\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Talking about analyst disruption last week, at the 2015 ARForum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

5. The customer experience is just so much better.<\/strong> \u00a0I love the fact that, with Uber, both the drivers and customers get to rate each other. \u00a0It’s a bit like that with HfS – we love our clients and we want them to love us. We do not put in 1-800 numbers to set up faceless analyst discussions, and we certainly do not stick analysts on competing postage-stamp P&Ls where they cover extremely narrow areas. In fact, talk to HfS and you’ll likely get a meeting with 4-5 of our analysts within a few days as so many areas are overlapping, if you really need to talk to us urgently. We also make time to hang out with our clients, at our office or theirs. We do this because we enjoy<\/em> it, not because we just want to get through the ol’ 9-5 treadmill. \u00a0It’s like getting into an Uber, where the driver is genuinely grateful to be of service, as opposed to some self-entitled miserable worker who’s just going through the motions.<\/p>\n

6. The incumbents can’t\/won’t cannibalize their revenues.<\/strong> \u00a0No-one likes having to drop their prices, while improving \u00a0their services and customer experience at the same time. It costs money and upsets investors with short-term mindsets. There is also an arrogance when your firm has been printing money for years, and suddenly you have to work<\/em> for it again. Entitled people just do not want to work harder\/smarter and with a better attitude. It’s the same for many of these overpriced creaking old taxis that smell like a dog died in the trunk – they simply have lost the ability and appetite to up their game.<\/p>\n

The Bottom-line: It’s all about being non-traditional, using digital tech and creating a workable revenue model<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hopefully, after reading this, people will start to use the term “HfS-ize” instead of uberize =)<\/p>\n

But, seriously, surviving in a market that refuses to change, such as the traditional IT analyst industry, is all about leveraging digital tech and the web to have a much, much more competitive model in terms of cost, reach and customer accessibility. \u00a0However, you can use all the cool tech in the world, but it’s useless without the human factor to drive it and make the magic work. \u00a0That’s where having a team<\/a> of motivated, passionate – and genuinely nice people, makes this business successful.<\/p>\n

While technology and a great business model is what makes the thing function, it’s really the people, the socially intelligent attitude and culture<\/a> which make up our secret sauce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, I know I promised to savage anyone who used the term “uberize” to describe a disruptive business model, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,51,55,56,57,78,80,81,88,91,831,93,830,98],"tags":[303],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[19],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-process-outsourcing-bpo","category-cloud-computing","category-crm-and-marketing","category-design-thinking","category-digital-transformation","category-hfsresearch-com-homepage","category-hr-strategy","category-it-outsourcing-it-services","category-outsourcing-heros","category-saas","category-smac-and-big-data","category-social-networking","category-sourcing-change","category-the-as-a-service-economy","tag-enterprise-irregulars"],"yoast_head":"\nDid HfS really just uberize the analyst business? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, I know I promised to savage anyone who used the term “uberize” to describe a disruptive business model, but...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-07T13:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Phil Fersht\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@pfersht\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Phil Fersht\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/\",\"name\":\"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-07T13:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-07T13:34:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg\",\"width\":300,\"height\":300},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/\",\"name\":\"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f\",\"name\":\"Phil Fersht\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/86ee0c0ac2d033eed87f327162eb27f7\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png\",\"caption\":\"Phil Fersht\"},\"description\":\"Phil Fersht is\u00a0a world-renowned analyst, writer and visionary in\u00a0emerging technologies, automation, digital business models, and the alignment of\u00a0enterprise operations to\u00a0drive customer impact and competitive advantage\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/hfsresearch.com\/team\/phil-fersht\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/pfersht\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/pfersht\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/author\/phil-fherst\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","og_description":"Yes, I know I promised to savage anyone who used the term “uberize” to describe a disruptive business model, but...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/","og_site_name":"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","article_published_time":"2015-11-07T13:34:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":300,"height":300,"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Phil Fersht","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@pfersht","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Phil Fersht","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/","name":"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg","datePublished":"2015-11-07T13:34:00+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-07T13:34:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5753501f12e39048841501.jpg","width":300,"height":300},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/hfs-uberize_110715\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Did HfS really just uberize the analyst business?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/","name":"Horses for Sources | No Boundaries","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c4f084ff7ad43632f537b3b30918e69f","name":"Phil Fersht","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/86ee0c0ac2d033eed87f327162eb27f7","url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/phill-150x150.png","caption":"Phil Fersht"},"description":"Phil Fersht is\u00a0a world-renowned analyst, writer and visionary in\u00a0emerging technologies, automation, digital business models, and the alignment of\u00a0enterprise operations to\u00a0drive customer impact and competitive advantage","sameAs":["http:\/\/hfsresearch.com\/team\/phil-fersht","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/pfersht\/","https:\/\/x.com\/pfersht"],"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/author\/phil-fherst\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":19,"user_id":3,"is_guest":0,"slug":"phil-fherst","display_name":"Phil Fersht","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Phil-Fersht-HFS-Updated.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Phil-Fersht-HFS-Updated.jpg"},"job_title":"","first_name":"Phil","last_name":"Fersht","user_url":"http:\/\/hfsresearch.com\/team\/phil-fersht","description":"Phil Fersht is\u00a0a world-renowned analyst, writer and visionary in\u00a0emerging technologies, automation, digital business models, and the alignment of\u00a0enterprise operations to\u00a0drive customer impact and competitive advantage"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"organization","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/organization?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}