The Brightwork Lessons from Dealing With Enterprise Software Entities

Executive Summary

• We have been dealing with many entities in the enterprise software space for over a decade.
• This article covers what we have learned.

Introduction

What we have learned is listed under each observation below.

Observation #1: Vendors are Useless to Us

As a research entity, we thought we could develop some type of functional relationship with software vendors at many points. After over ten years of interaction, we have concluded that vendors are useless for us.

Here are some reasons why.

1. Corrupting Influence: Vendors frequently seek to coopt or corrupt Brightwork Research & Analysis. Most vendors that reach out want free coverage or want to pay for flowery coverage. They will often attempt to leverage the reputation we have developed to provide accurate information to promote us to provide false information.
2. Self Overestimation: Vendors typically massively overestimate their applications and their knowledge on their primary topics. For example, we have been subjected to many people posing as vendors as experts in SAP and interacting with us as equals when they have 100% financial bias. They develop atrocious integration adapters to SAP and then give us their view of how to partner with SAP. This same “Dunning Kruger Effect” applies to marketing and sales professionals. Many vendors are weak at marketing and seek to present their shoddily written articles with our research. Many employees in various vendors intend to fake their knowledge to their bosses and other people in the vendor.
3. Misrepresentation of the Interest in the Truth: We have only exceedingly rarely found vendors interested in what is true. What is clocked as an interest in truth, such as getting the word out about false information provided by SAP or Oracle, is really just an attempt for them to sell their own item? This is not an interest in what is true, and it is an interest in meeting a quota. And the only “truth” they are interested in exposing is that of their competitors. One of the most egregious examples is Oracle employees, who have the unmitigated gall to complain about falsehoods and deceptions on the part of SAP! Amazing. As soon as one works for Oracle, there is no level of unethical behavior that the Oracle employee can complain about. In fact, Oracle employees should be barred from even explaining ethics to their children. This is why we created the following article just for Oracle employees Teaching Oracle About Hypocrisy on Lock-In.
4. Bureaucracy: Even smaller vendors often have stultifying levels of bureaucracy. This is particularly true at the more senior levels — where we tend to have discussions.
5. Free Psychoanalysis Services?: Many vendors seem to think that we are a free psychoanalysis service –why they are not going to meet the upcoming quarter or other issues they are dealing with at the time. We have thought of providing this service, but unfortunately, we are not certified mental health practitioners.

From the initial conversation to later conversations, vendors seek to extract as much as possible from Brightwork Research & Analysis, which is why we developed the following policy regarding vendors described in the article Why Brightwork Research & Analysis Has No Relationships With Vendors. 

Observation #2: 3rd Party Support Providers Must be Vetted

This may be considered an extension of Observation #1, as 3rd party support providers are a type of “vendor.” However, 3rd party support vendors will often like our articles because it calls into question the support value provided by SAP and Oracle. However, all 3rd party support vendors are not in alignment with our research conclusions.

For example, we tracked one 3rd party support vendor that states that it provides both SAP and Oracle support. However, when we checked their employees’ background on LinkedIn, we could not find a single person with any SAP experience.

No doubt 3rd party support providers provide better support than SAP or Oracle. Both SAP and Oracle barely try, as we cover in the article How do SAP and Oracle’s Support Profit Margins Compare to Pablo Escobar.

Observation #3: IT Research Entities Are Useless to Us

As we cover in the article How to Understand Why IT Lacks Functioning Research Entities Covering SAP, the major research entities like Gartner, Forrester, and IDC don’t really do research. Vendors pay them to provide sales collateral for companies.

There is actually no validity to any of the Gartner MQs. I cover here The Problem with How Gartner Makes its Money that Gartner nor the entities rated disclose their payments to Gartner now the amounts. PwC and Oracle could apprise us of their yearly “donations” to Gartner, but they won’t and will change the subject when asked.

Something readers might find interesting is this article showing Gartner distributing press releases for SAP. How Gartner Distributes Press Releases On HANA. Here is IDC doing the same thing IDC Takes Money to Publish SAP Provided Sample on S/4HANA

We know this because not only have we extensively analyzed Gartner, but we have had vendors reach out to us to create fake research for them. They used different terminology such as “getting the word out,” etc.. But it was an offer of money for fake research.

We read the output of research entities, but only for the following reasons.

1. To understand what is being read in the space.
2. To laugh at the analyst firm’s attempts to hide their income and or otherwise state that the money they were paid had no impact on their coverage.
3. To see how out of it IT decision-makers are for thinking they are reading research.

Observation #4: Hedge Funds and Private Equity Expect Research for Free

We have run into hedge funds with $13B under management that has pushed back on research estimates in the $20,000 range as being..

“Too large for their budget.”

The approach that hedge funds and private equity follow is private equity or a hedge fund. Then, they expect anyone with information to hand over their information to them and explain it to them — for free.

Hedge funds and private equity have zero respect for others’ work, and as they are chiselers by nature, they think that the entire world should be free to them. Employees at hedge funds and private equity generally know close to nothing about technology. The incompetence level is high, as many people who work in the industry are children of other rich people. In fact, many companies that raise money from hedge funds or private equity often find that the hedge fund or PE firm “recommends” that they hire individuals who work for the hedge fund or PE entity. These “strong recommendations” are for individuals who are the children of the hedge fund or PE entity owners.

This naturally creates a sense of entitlement and entitlement to the work of others. The idea, roughly, is that you will provide them with actionable intelligence, and they will make an enormous sum of money from it. Then the people that provided them with the insight will receive nothing. A major motivation is for the hedge fund employee to make it seem as if they came up with the idea all by themselves.

The Importance of Faking Knowledge for Hedge Fund and Private Equity Bosses

We are convinced this is a primary reason the employees do not want to argue for a budget for research because if they did, it would become apparent that they were not the source of the insight. In this way, hedge funds and private equity can be viewed as research harvesters and thieves. After the hedge fund or private equity screws information providers, they use the information to use their financial muscle to screw companies. 

Our approach is to make them go away by asking for their budget right off the bat due to our interactions with hedge funds and private equity.

The idea of parting with a tiny fraction of their wealth is enough to short circuit the individual, as they try to process why you are not bending over backward immediately at the mention of the fact that they represent a hedge fund.

No doubt, we will add to this list in the future. But it was good or therapeutic to list what we have learned from operating as a research entity in the enterprise software space.