Gartner reviews

1) As the #1 IT research firm in the world, one would think Gartner would practice what they preach. The latest sales CRM system took over a year to implement and it is difficult to use, not intuitive, and the data base installed was not accurate and outdated. To do a simple forecast or change a sales forecast could take ten steps. Sales leaders that insist sales people put in all of their activity and continually update information lose 6 - 8 hours of sales productivity a week. BI which is a leading IT topic is weak and a poor example of what is preached. A large percentage of the company works on embaressingly outdated Microsoft Office Products. Large clients would be shocked. 2) There is an overall attitude in the company that Gartner know best on how everything should be done. There is a closed middle and upper management team that does not have an environment where top industry sales and operations leaders can join the company and succeed. There is a closed club that limits innovation and growth. This is especially relevant in sales; however, not at all relevant in the research group. 3) Sales leadership is the weakest link at Gartner. Top sales execs come into the company from around the globe because of the brand and the quality of the products. They are welcomed in and receive top notch initial training. However, the next two levels of sales management are very weak especially when compared to other top brand product leaders. As stated above, sales leaders almost always come from within and have very limited sales leadership skill sets. Next level leaders are promoted because of their Gartner experience and continue the closed environment that discourages fresh new ideas and perspective. What happens is a sales leadership team with limited skills sets in their primary role: sales leadership. They know Gartner, processes and people, so it is easier to slot someone in internally rather than add quality people and train them. With that, there is high turnover in new sales people and because of the limited skill sets of many of the sales leaders, there is a merry go round of sales changes. 4) From a business perspective the company is very well run and the key Gartner business leaders understand how to grow the company and maximize shareholder investment. The sales leadership does not seem to understand how to run a P & L and their idea of growing sales is to hire more people. This is certainly one way to grow sales, but at what bottom line expense. The most strategic and important sales group at Gartner, has hired droves of sales reps., managers etc. The salaries, ramp up packages and training costs are huge. Leadership has authorized and approved this expansion but the overall results YTD are a disaster. Some of the worst performance in Gartner sales history or any sales history is taking place in what should be the premier part of the sales organization. Growth numbers in single digits are unheard of. Plans to get to get close to 50% sales growth is unacceptable. This is a classic example of what has been reviewed above.

- Politics are essential for advancement - Weak middle management - Many important analysts recently left - Doesn't practice what you preach - Not truly independent - Lots of micromanagement - Incentive structure stimulates unethical practices - Sales driven