After weeks of discussions, due diligence, and negotiations, Gartner, Inc. has agreed to acquire AMR Research for $64M in cash. Gartner has long been a significant force in IT research, serving 60,000 clients in 10,000+ organizations. In discussions with Gartner executives, they see our supply chain expertise and our work with operating executives as a complement to their IT strengths. In fact, they want us to continue to use our company name for the foreseeable future. Working together, we hope to build an even stronger supply chain research practice that can reach across all geographies and verticals.
What does this mean for clients and prospects?
Outside the possible initial surprise, the intent is to maintain a “business as usual” mindset. If you’re an AMR Research client or prospect, your research, client services, and sales contacts will remain the same. All are being retained by Gartner. There will be no changes to our research agenda or announced roster of webcasts, podcasts, and customer visits. We’ll continue to provide the same bold ideas, compelling research, and pragmatic advice that we’ve long promised.
While much of the announcement will focus on our supply chain coverage, we’ll continue to provide extensive analysis on enterprise applications, infrastructure, and services.
What does this mean for us?
There’s no doubt that employees are in for a fair amount of change. With $1.28B in FY08 sales, Gartner is about 32 times our size. It has more than 650 analysts to our 40, and 1,000 sales reps compared to 45 for us. It has operations in 80 countries, while we’re in the United States and the UK.
Is bigger better? While I haven’t worked for a $1B+ company in 25 years, there are several facets of Gartner I find very appealing:
- We will be writing to a much larger audience. For example, First Thing Monday has the largest subscription base of all of our publications. Many of the 32,000 subscribers who received the most recent edition get it as a free publication. While we’re proud of that base, Gartner has nearly twice as many paying clients.
- We will have a stronger global reach. While my AMR Research tenure has allowed me to amass nearly 3.4 million American Airlines miles from business travel to six continents, we were never very successful in building a global presence. Although we have global clients, we could never provide them true local support. Gartner, by contrast, has operations everywhere.
- We will be in more verticals. We have a strong presence in discrete and process manufacturing, consumer products, life sciences, and retail, but that’s pretty much it. This will change. For example, as part of our sustainability coverage, I look forward to talking to executives in utilities and public sector about their roles and involvement.
- We will have access to more research assets. Because of our size, we often had a single analyst or two covering an important emerging software or services market. We now have 650 new research peers to stimulate our thinking and challenge our ideas.
- It’s all about the written word. In my first meeting with a Gartner executive a few weeks ago, I asked about metrics for research. He told me that his firm places a strong emphasis on high-quality writing. It was exactly what I hoped he’d say.
As you can surmise, I plan to stay with Gartner and reach a much broader audience. While it will be a bit odd not to have the Advanced Manufacturing Research or AMR Research logos grace my business cards and PowerPoint templates, at least I will never again be introduced as being from “American Market Research” or “ARM.” Everyone knows Gartner.
What do you think?
Can Gartner accelerate our plans to be a global supply chain research powerhouse, thanks to its global reach and strong sales presence? How long will it take us to reach 10,000 supply chain executives? Will winter be over before I’m expected to complete my first Gartner Hype Cycle or Magic Quadrant?
As always, I welcome your feedback and ideas—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
