Welcome to PR Vibes, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with insight into the publications, thought leaders and events in the communications industry. Today, we visit with Stephanie Atkinson, CEO and Founder of Compass Intelligence, a consulting and market analytics firm that specializes in telecom, mobile and IT. Compass is the new sponsor of the 2014 Compass Intelligence Mobility Awards which will be announced on Jan. 8 at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Deadline for entries is Oct. 25, 2013.
Stephanie, can you tell us how your background has led to Compass Intelligence?
I got my feet wet in the telecom industry. I started out in the information services side, as well as in the R&D group, at what was then the equipment manufacturer Alcatel USA. I also worked at a CLEC here in Texas. As for market research, I was an industry analyst and program leader within the Telecom Services Division at Frost & Sullivan and I’ve worked at In-Stat, a division of Reed Business Information. In both of those organizations, I developed their first vertical markets program with a focus on industry adoption, usage and implementation of technology in the workplace.
Ultimately, I’ve always wanted to start my own company. My background is a mixed bag of the overall telecom and technology space and in 2005, the timing was right to form Compass Intelligence. We are a certified woman-owned business and in 2010, I’m proud to say we made the Aggie 100 list for one of the fastest growing Aggie-owned businesses.
What technologies does Compass focus on?
We cover six primary research tracks: mobility/wireless, M2M, emerging technologies, customer & digital experience, thought leaders research (our turn-key survey services), and green technology (reuse/recycling of devices).
I consider us unique in that we look at the areas that are getting a lot of early buzz, but not really covered well by our competitors. WebRTC, the whole wearable computing market, robotics, next-gen computing are technologies where we see emerging and booming market opportunities that we want to evaluate and discuss before the marketplace does and talk to our customers about. We will be diving even deeper into technologies related to mobility and M2M.
How do you approach your relationship with your clients?
We’re moving more into a role as a consulting company, so a lot of services that we’ll roll out are focused on retainer relationships with our clients. We’re much more personalized. We’re in the offices of our clients and we’re working with them on their strategy — market planning, product development, channel/alliance and partner strategies. Those are really high level strategic decisions that our clients are coming to us for support. We’re going to continue to issue market research and reports, but at a foundational level, where it will be leveraged and used as part of a larger more consultative engagement.
As an up and coming market intelligence firm, how do you differentiate?
Well, I would not necessarily consider us to be “up and coming” since we have been in the business for 8 years now, but we are getting quite a bit of recognition and notoriety with large Fortune 100 companies. While many market research firms cover either one side or the other, we cover both vendor-based research and end-user based research, combining these areas to provide a holistic picture of the market and provide actionable intelligence to our customers.
We have also invested quite a bit of money to create our thought leaders panel, which allows us to conduct turn-key survey services for our customers. We interview and survey end-users (consumer and business) and business decision-makers on hot topics in the market, as well as emerging topics. Some of our clients have key questions they want to ask of their own clients and prospects. We leverage our primary research to uncover buying behaviors, purchasing patterns/preferences, budget priorities, needs/wants analysis, and much more.
I would say that we are also unique in that we are very well-rounded in terms of our coverage and perspective of the marketplace. We have a great team of experts on our staff that are well-known in the industry for their respective areas of expertise ranging from mobility and M2M to cloud and device recycling.
As for our approach to research, our reports and deliverables are built as we go throughout the year. Our editorial calendar is flexible enough to allow our clients to suggest topics to cover, which allows us to truly address the changing needs of our clients.
Is Compass solely a North American analyst firm?
Currently, we do a lot of work with North American companies and some work internationally. The long term vision is to really grow into a global perspective and work with some of the international vendors that are out there as well. We are currently working more closely with the global M2M vendor landscape.
How does the acquisition of MobileTrax and the Mobility Awards align with your vision?
The Mobility Awards held at CES are one of the big reasons why we acquired MobileTrax in September. Since we’re very heavily focused on the mobility and device/equipment markets, there are quite a number of synergies in terms of what our business is covering, what our clients are focused on, and where we want to take the company. We already had our A-List in M2M awards that we wanted to expand, so we have simply rolled that, along with our Bamboo Mobile Green Technology Awards, underneath the Compass Intelligence Mobility Awards program that happens at CES.
We are also extremely pleased that Dr. J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., who founded the Mobility awards, will serve as our new Chief Mobility Analyst and continue producing the awards, along with the Inside Mobile newsletter, under the Compass Intelligence brand.
What’s unique about the Compass Intelligence Mobility Awards?
We feel our program is very unique in that we have market analysts and experts that are part of the voting process. It’s not a pay-to-play program. It’s a very sound methodology for evaluating vendors, going through financials, understanding who their clients are, what kind of wins they have in the marketplace, and really looking at these on a metric by metric basis. Once we have a good listing, we have experts in the industry – market analysts, market research and consultants– that are part of the voting process, rather than only editors and publishers that write about the marketplace. And, although there are other awards programs that recognize mobility and M2M, there are very few (if any) awards that recognize reuse and recycle programs, which I think are important today.
Are there any emerging and disrupting technologies people should be aware of?
Consumer wearable technology; predictive and prescriptive modeling in data analytics; WebRTC and taking collaboration and communications to the next level, especially in the enterprise; as well as enterprise-ready computing and mobile devices. We believe we’re moving away from TDM and circuit-switched technology to an all IP environment. Voice over LTE and HD Voice are gaining ground. And, the Cloud is becoming a part of every mainstream enterprise solution or offering for the future.
Is there one thing you’d like people to know about Compass Intelligence?
You can call us and we’re going to answer the phone. I think our personable relationships with our clients are much more appreciated. Just this week we’ve gotten feedback from a Tier 1 carrier who told us one of the things that they like is that we are at their offices, embedded in their company, working with different departments across their organization and can see things that they don’t see. At Compass, we’re not just producing reports and conducting briefings with the marketplace. We’re talking to high level executives, working with them on some of their most important projects around strategy and planning.