Many analyst relations (AR) teams face the need to reach dozens and even hundreds of industry analysts, who are relevant to their company and its product lines, and who influence prospects in the market. But with limited staff and limited time, it’s impossible, of course, to connect with everyone. Prioritizing analysts and tiering your contact list can help determine how to allocate your – and your executives’ – time.
But wouldn’t it be nice if you could scale your outreach, easily reaching all the analysts who are relevant to your business? At our upcoming User Forum, being held virtually on Dec. 7-8, AR professionals from SAP will share strategies for reaching more analysts without increasing AR headcount.
Through the ARchitect Analyst Portal, SAP is able to invite its relevant analysts to sign in to a digital destination. There, they can centrally access the company’s latest, relevant, curated content – from product data sheets to case studies to briefing presentations and more.
We were thrilled to connect with SAP AR pros Caitlin Fischer and Kathy Lee for more info, and a preview of their User Forum presentation. In the Q&A below, they discuss how they’re applying the Analyst Portal, SAP AR opportunities and challenges faced, and productivity tips that may come in handy for your own teams! Read on to learn more (and join us at User Forum for additional great details!).
Q: Can you please briefly describe your roles at SAP?
A: We’re analyst relations managers. As part of the SAP Global Corporate Affairs team, we seek to cultivate, manage and strengthen relationships with industry analysts.
Q: What is the mission of your AR team? What value does your company place on analyst relations?
A: The SAP AR team exists to foster active influence with industry analysts, drive positive research exposure and compress the selling cycle. The AR team creates the structure to ensure constructive dialog, engaging experiences, and trusted relationships between SAP and industry analysts.
Q: What AR challenges does your organization face?
A: We are a growing company making the transition to the cloud. We have a fast-paced work environment. SAP is known as a leader in enterprise applications such as ERP. SAP is also a technology innovation company.
With such a broad solution and technology portfolio, we need to reach a wide and varied analyst audience. To maximize our impact, we need to find new ways to scale and to reach new analyst audiences.
Q: How do you use people, process and technology, such as ARchitect, to solve them?
A: We use ARchitect to collect and share information across our team. We have implemented the ARchitect Analyst Portal to extend our reach to the industry analyst audience. This has enabled self-service resources to be made available, which has allowed for analysts to receive on-demand content at their convenience. The Analyst Portal also gives us the ability to monitor analyst engagement, so that we can adjust our approach to deliver more valued content over time.
Q: What is the tentative title of your User Forum presentation? What’s the single most important thing people will learn from it?
A: The title is: “Implementing ARchitect Analyst Portal: How SAP Reaches More Analyst Audiences.” During this session, people will learn the use case for SAP’s implementation of the ARchitect Analyst Portal, as well as some of the challenges we faced and the best practices we have developed along the way.
Q: Are there any AR productivity “hacks” you can share with our blog readers?
A: Our AR team has implemented “Focus Friday,” where we try not to schedule meetings so that we can free up time to focus on catching up on tasks and dedicate time for creative and strategic thinking.
Want to hear more from Caitlin, Kathy and other AR pros? Join us at ARchitect User Forum Dec. 7-8, from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. PT each day. The virtual event is an opportunity to learn new AR strategies, listen to real-world success stories and share ideas with other AR practitioners across the globe. We hope you’ll register and join us!
