Shake-up at Ovum

Credit where it's due - my former boss David Rossiter has done a great job of detailing the recent changes at Ovum, although he's missed a couple of other leavers in Elsa Lion, former Senior Analyst in Ovum's mobile team, who has taken a market intelligence role at Orange and Carl Gressum, who used to run the ConnectedHome service, but who has moved over to Premonvision recently and is currently presenting in Korea.

At the recent IIAR meeting, Ovum SVP David Mitchell was confronted about the number of changes in the analyst teams over the past year or so, but he was apparently upbeat about the quality and number of analysts (I couldn't be there, but my colleague Agi reported back to me).

All this comes at a time when Ovum's advisory services are being re-organized to fit Datamonitor's bundled service approach as the acquisition dust begins to settle. Interesting times indeed...

Published 23 April 2008 15:39 by Dominic Pannell

Filed under: Analyst Industry News, Ovum

Comments

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  David R said:

  Thanks Dom.

  Oh yes, interesting times at Ovum.  David Mitchell did an interesting presentation at the IIAR meeting and came across well.

  However, lots of analysts are obviously leaving and very few seem to be joining.  

  This going to have an impact on public perception and almost certainly research quality (not least because there's fewer people doing the same amount of work - they're more stretched and perhaps covering areas that they don't know as well).

  But Datamonitor has always been a fairly anonymous company when it comes to analysts (can you name a Datamonitor analyst with the same profile as some of those leaving Ovum?)  

  Perhaps it simply hasn't realised until recently what message the Ovum departures are sending out to the market.  Perhaps it doesn't think it matters.

  It does - but as to why...well, that's another blog post in itself ;-)

  April 23, 2008 18:05
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  Dominic Pannell said:

  Another post? That's an idea.

  I remember a colleague, Melissa, telling me that I had been "going hammer and tongs" on a phone call with Gartner's Peter Sondergaard during which I had been explaining the importance of providing details of analysts and the futility/counter-productiveness of concealing them from people who might wish to speak to them.

  That was back in 2001. Last year, Peter observed that Gartner had listened to me (along with several dozen other AR pros) and now provide more info (although arguably nowhere near sufficient). Perhaps it's time to bring out the ironmongery again?

  April 24, 2008 16:31
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  Whats happening at Ovum David and Dom discuss « SageCircle Blog said:

  PingBack from http://sagecircle.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/whats-happening-at-ovum-david-and-dom-discuss/

  April 24, 2008 22:07
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  Carter Lusher said:

  Great posts David and Dom. I linked to them at

  What’s happening at Ovum? David and Dom discuss (http://www.sagecircle.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/whats-happening-at-ovum-david-and-dom-discuss/)

  April 24, 2008 22:28
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  Duncan Chapple said:

  David is spot on with the musing that 'Perhaps it simply hasn't realised until recently what message the Ovum departures are sending out to the market.  Perhaps it doesn't think it matters.'

  I also think Datamonitor doesn't really feel responsible for its new family at Ovum, as if the 'victor' doesn't need to be caring.

  I wrote up some thoughts on this after attending the leaving drinks for some former Ovum colleagues a couple of  weeks ago. The outflow of staff is clearly a result of management actions... <a>http://www.analystequity.com/?p=903</a>

  April 25, 2008 10:26