Monday I had the pleasure of speaking with Yankee Group’s CEO Terry Waters and Vice President, Marketing Shirley Macbeth. Terry shared with me the vision he has in Yankee’s evolution from connectivity to mobility. A very salient point, Terry said, “We are turning the telescope around from network out to view the industry now from the user in.” (See more from this conversation in an upcoming PRVibes Q&A.)
Meanwhile, a stepping stone to this new vision is the development of an “Affiliate Program.” Announced Monday, “The Affiliate Program… provides clients with access to the broadest, best-in-class mobility expertise in the industry as part of their Yankee Group membership.” The model is to leverage the strength of industry experts (both past Yankee analysts and other industry pundits) to augment Yankee Group’s core team of researchers.
In a nutshell, Yankee can still claim expertise in tangential technology sectors by working closely with “affiliate” analysts. Best known in the management consulting world, Yankee follows in the path of a long line of services companies which embrace this model (Calysto included). As long as Yankee is providing the clients it’s a win-win for everybody.
Affiliate Program Inaugural Members
Pim Bilderbeek — specializing in European Cloud Services and European Unified Communications and Collaboration
Caroline Gabriel — specializing in European Service Provider Strategies
Zeus Kerravala — specializing in Unified Communications and Collaboration and Enterprise Infrastructure
Susan McNeice — specializing in B/OSS
Jennifer Pigg — specializing in Network Infrastructure