Pros
Within the teams, whether in Sales, Marketing, or among the Analysts, the collaboration was incredibly good. I had the opportunity to work with so many amazing colleagues.
Cons
- The CEO has assembled a board that simply approves his very disturbing view of the market and the company, without offering any constructive criticism or suggestions for improvement. - The entire board neither listens to the analysts nor the sales team, who speak with customers daily and understand the market. The company's direction makes absolutely no sense. Forrester cannot compete with Gartner; it is much smaller and does not have the same reputation as Gartner. It should differentiate itself, but unfortunately, this is not happening. Instead, the board raises prices to match Gartner's level, wants to work only with the largest corporations, and has completely abandoned its flexibility. - The CSO is a complete misplacement. He was previously involved in sales enablement at Gartner, which is probably why he was hired, as he should know the competitor well. However, instead of building an organization that provides a real alternative to Gartner, he is trying to turn Forrester into a copy of Gartner. A telling sign of the misplacement of the CSO was a statement from him saying that there is nothing worse for him than hearing from customers how flexible Forrester is. Yet, this flexibility has always been a major USP for Forrester. Unfortunately, he doesn't listen to the feedback from his sales team. Instead, the same trainings are repeatedly conducted. More and more processes are being implemented to monitor the sales team members, and absolutely unrealistic targets regarding the number of meetings in a week are being demanded. Of course, it’s important to set goals for employees to assess their work, but these goals must be achievable and not lead to frustration. Once again, the way the targets are set clearly shows how little actual knowledge of the market and customers the current CSO has.
