The supply chain analyst community - in my opinion it is an underdiscussed topic. Let’s take a look.
As many readers may know, I took a tour as an analyst from roughly 1998 to 2000, with a company called META Group, out of Stamford, CT. Though little remembered today, at the time META was the second largest overall technology-focused analyst firm behind Gartner - then known as Gartner Group.
It was an interesting experience, broadened my knowledge enormously, and showed me a path to take with SCDigest that was in effect in-between the analysts and the trade press. It’s worked out well.
Gilmore Says.... |
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| Gartner has also turned the Top 25 into almost an industry by itself, now with "The Next 25," the "Healthcare Top 25," the "Industrial Top 25," and more. |
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As with META Group, Gartner then and now was based in Stamford (though it is now a global giant) - and that’s because META was started by the interesting and great Dale Kutnick, who left Gartner to form META sometime in the mid-1990s. Kutnick went back to Gartner when it acquired its rival in 2004.
Kutnick took on a senior role at Gartner after the deal and is apparently still there in an "Emeritus" role. There is a lot more to this story, but we’ll leave there for now.
This time period may have been the high mark in the history of the analyst landscape. In addition to Gartner and META, meaningful supply chain analyst companies in the early 2000s included:
• Yankee Group
• Forrester
• AMR
• ARC Advisory Group
• IDC (in transition from a hardware and data orientation to more broad-based)
• Benchmarking Partners
• Industry Directions
I am sure I am missing some others - and would be happy for a shout out from our readers if you have any good additions from that era.
Before moving on here, I will note the prominence of Boston in the supply chain analyst universe, with Yankee, Forrester, AMR, ARC Advisory, IDC, Benchmarking Partners, and Industry Directions all Boston-based. Most be something in the water. "Oh, Boston you’re my home."
So who is left standing here in 2024? In addition to the Gartner takeout of META Group, Yankee was sold a number of times, and eventually disappeared. Benchmarking Partners, which had so much potential, morphed into something else and then went away (but not before being a key player in the development of Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment - CPFR).
Industry Directions was a very small firm and eventually just ran out of steam or staff.
But the biggest move by far in the supply chain analyst space was Gartner’s acquisition of AMR (originally known as Advanced Manufacturing Research) in 2009, with a deal that changed everything.
More on that in a bit.
But of that group above, that leaves Forrester, ARC Advisory and, IDC along with Gartner still cranking out those "research notes," with - in my opinion - most of them operating remarkably similarly today to what they were about two decades ago.
And of course there have been some new entrants that are out there today, though not many, in the face of now mighty Gartner and its absolute grip on the supply chain analyst market.
Most readers probably do not realize that at the time of Gartner’s acquisitions of AMR, its supply chain resources were very modest - just a handful of analysts though of course, Gartner is and was big in many other areas of corporate IT).
The AMR acquisition brought in I believe 30+ analysts with a lot of domain expertise into the Gartner fold that soon changed its supply chain offering dramatically.
That included an annual AMR conference in Phoenix every May that eventually became Gartner’s Supply Chain Symposium today. In addition to the analyst resources and the annual conference, AMR brought something else: the Supply Chain Top 25, first published in 2004.
That AMR foundation, combined with the incredible growth in Gartner’s overall marketing prowess, has taken the company to just a whole other level in the supply chain.
Case in point: the AMR supply chain conference - thought to be a pretty big thing - drew maybe 300 people, many of them technology vendors. Now the Supply Chain Symposium is pulling in north of 2500 attendees and continuing to grow.
Gartner has also turned the Top 25 into almost an industry by itself, now with "The Next 25," the "Healthcare Top 25," the "Industrial Top 25," and more. These and other moves by Gartner have been really interesting to watch.
I have a lot more to discuss on this topic, including an update on the current landscape for supply chain analysts, but will break it here for this week.
Look for part 2 next Friday.
What is your reaction to these thoughts on this look at the analysts? What would you add? Let us know your thought at the Feedback section below.
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