Today, we’re bringing you a guest post from Suzannah Archibald, associate director – global analyst relations at EY. We’re thrilled to tap into her decade-plus of AR experience and share her insights with you:

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Gartner says that the overall analyst relations role is fundamentally changing to become one that’s more “strategic” and attuned to overall business priorities. So, it compels AR professionals to not only create a two-to-three-year vision now to evolve both who they report into (with AR increasingly moving away from reporting into the CMO and instead into heads of strategy, planning or product marketing) but also to expand who their analyst/influencers are. In my view, many global AR teams have landed and expanded who they inform; many must now ensure analysts, sourcing advisories and deal specialists are also kept in the loop, significantly increasing AR’s oversight and impact to become a more strategic function.

As the analyst relations function continues to evolve into a more strategic relations role, make sure you have a plan in place to ensure insight and intelligence flow both into and outside your organization — so you can reap the benefits now of the increased exposure your role is likely to have with senior business stakeholders.

New technology can help support you. To that end, you can explore using large language models (LLMs) and generative AI tools, if your company permits it, to both pull together your data and pre-populate analyst requests for information (RFIs). What’s more, you may also be able to use LLMs and GenAI, also with the proper permissions, to generate quick and digestible summaries of longer, hard-to-read analyst reports that can be more easily consumed by members of the wider business, outside of your AR team.

What to do when scaled-back budgets still need to deliver AR results

In any year of reduced spend and budgets, your AR budget may be tight. To best achieve results that matter, keep the following in mind:

  • Make sure that you are consistently evaluating targets and delivering based on your business’s priority objectives.
  • Get into the habit now of re-evaluating spend to scrutinize AR ROI and what is delivering the best returns on “analyst time invested.”
  • Cascade your AR wins far and wide. You may be surprised to learn how little your company’s teams — outside of PR, comms, marketing and (of course) AR functions — are aware of what analyst relations can do. Other stakeholders may be so impressed that they are willing to part with a little of their own budgets to get dedicated access to analysts in FY25 and beyond.
  • Get into the consistent practice of leveraging AR results for sales enablement, too — packaging them for your sales/pre-sales teams to use immediately with prospects. If you create slides, they can just lift and shift.

Making the most of your AR events

When planning AR events, consider running hybrid events, as they can significantly enhance your corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability credentials, and curry favor with your analysts. Many analysts in the post-COVID landscape are still wary of traveling far and wide, and many more have firm-wide travel restrictions in place.

We also know sustainability and net zero commitments aren’t going anywhere, and with analyst time often booked up in the first few months of the year, it’s important to make it easy for analysts and influencers to participate in any format (in-person or virtually). Also important: Generate on-demand content for those who can’t attend due to busy calendars.

You can also make AR events worth their while for analyst and influencer attendees by guaranteeing 1:1 meeting access with relevant executives, partners and even customers. If you can’t offer this, consider running pre-taped sessions as a courtesy for those who can’t attend or miss a full day from work.

And if you do have your event budget cut in the first few months of the new year, think about creative ways to have an impact. For example, you might opt to run a virtual-only regional showcase every quarter. This can reduce your overall budget, and it also frees up your executives, who won’t have the same travel commitments and are committed only during their designated sessions to be “out of office.”

New year, new leadership to report into?

Often, a new year doesn’t just bring the feeling of being refreshed and recharged (thanks to some downtime), but it may also bring a leadership shake-up.

If you end up having someone new for AR to report into, ensure they understand your annual AR marketing plan, budgets and planned spend. Also, plan some 1:1 onboarding time to align them to your program, and share insights and intelligence you gained along the way.

That way, not only do you gain a potential internal advocate for your AR program, but you also don’t risk having your budget cut if others get there first to convince your new stakeholder that their areas are more deserving of increased spend.

Good luck in 2024

Best of luck to you and your AR teams in the year ahead. May you capitalize on people, processes and new technologies to have a high-impact year!

As associate director, global analyst relations at EY, Suzannah Archibald is responsible for internal and external stakeholder management — driving analyst relations across multiple domains: cybersecurity; risk; tech, media and entertainment, and telecommunications (TMT); intelligent automation/RPA; IoT; 5G services and more. You can connect with Suzannah on LinkedIn or connect on X (Twitter) to keep the conversation going!

Please note the views above are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of EY as a global client-serving organization or of its associated Member Firms in more than 150 countries worldwide.