I’ve read research from firms like Aberdeen Group, Gartner and International Data Corp. for more than a decade. Sometimes I’m impressed. Sometimes I read information that affirms what I already know. But on some occasions, I see data that sounds like thinly veiled vendor messaging.
A case in point: Aberdeen has issued a report stating that “All best-in class companies leverage managed security services to bolster defenses.” As the editorial director of MSPmentor, I’m certainly bullish about managed security services. But anytime you hear a research firm say “everybody is doing it,” you should proceed with caution.
In my mind, the vast majority of businesses can benefit from managed security. But the managed services industry has to avoid the temptation to declare victory within all customer settings.
Here’s another way to think of it: Thousands of businesses benefit from Salesforce.com’s hosted CRM applications. But some customers, for whatever reasons, strongly prefer on-premises applications. No technology is all good or all bad.
Remember, when microwave ovens came along, they complemented (but didn’t fully replace) traditional ovens and stove-tops. Such is the case with managed services and software as a service (SaaS). Both approaches offer plenty of upside to most companies. But managed services and SaaS won’t fully replace traditional IT.
Even as we all continue to push down the managed services path, let’s be sure to maintain a critical eye when we see vendor-sponsored research proclaiming something to be good for all leading businesses. A “one size fits all” approach rarely, after all, works in IT. When it does, you usually wind up in a commodity market — such as PCs. And we all know MSPs can’t survive on commodity margins.
2/10: Correction and Update: One of our readers accurately points out that the statement “All best-in-class companies leverage managed security services to bolster defenses” was featured in a press release issued by the report’s sponsor. However, Aberdeen was also quoted in the release.
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When you sponsor research like this you can “buy” any finding you want.
I don’t know what you are quoting Joe. I downloaded and read this report. On page 7 is says “Best-in-Class Strategies Only 20 % of Best-in-Class organizations use managed security services for all their security needs. The others use a mix of managed security services and security solutions installed in-house.” As far as Math Man goes my thoughts would be the respondents in the report have nothing to do with who sponsored the report as far as I can tell. I also read the “cited quotes” … these are enduser. I use this sort of research to ensure I know what companies are doing. I think both comments are sadly unfounded.
Hi Carolyn: Thanks for your feedback. You’ll find the headline stating “Aberdeen Report Reveals All Best-In-Class Companies Leverage Managed Security Services to Bolster Defenses” in this press release. Aberdeen even supplied a quote for the release.
Joe,
Although I can’t comment on the vendor press release, I would like to take a minute to educate your readers on the Aberdeen research methodology.
All of our research is hypothesis-based and standardized according to our publicly documented PACE methodology, ensuring that surveys are designed in a standard, repeatable and unbiased manner. Sample are drawn from a panel of over 410,000 individuals that have opted in to participate in our research studies, and the reports provide full disclosure of the response base and demographics of survey participants. Furthermore, our research previews (i.e. the Analyst’s research proposal including the research hypothesis) are made publicly available BEFORE the research is fielded, ensuring visibility and transparency on the entire research process.
It is the end user for whom Aberdeen writes, not the vendor. Multi-vendor underwriting is a business model that allows us to bring great research, for free, to our community of 2.5M readers, 410,000 panel members, 408 end user research advisory members, 90% of the Fortune 500 and 75% of the Global 500! By design, our benchmark reports do in fact determine the capabilities and enablers that best-in-class companies have utilized to achieve superior results – i.e. the very point of conducting the research. However, sponsorship does not equate to an outcome. To ensure that the research remains balanced, our benchmark reports do not recommend or even discuss specific vendors. In fact, Aberdeen does not do one-off, single sponsor research reports; nor do we do custom research projects on behalf of vendors. That’s more than ANY significant competitor can say!
Joe, I agree that we all need to be critical of the research that we read. However, in the future, I’d like to suggest that we make a collective commitment to ourselves to actually read the research and understand methodology before passing judgment.
Kind regards,
Andrew Boyd, PhD
Chief Research Officer
Aberdeen Group
Andrew, Point well taken. I apologize for errantly positioning the vendor’s PR claims as Aberdeen’s conclusions.