About Forrester
Forrester Research, Inc. is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.

Vikram leads the forecast team, which is responsible for producing all forecasts within M&S research. He is focused on the consumer commerce areas including retail, travel, and financial services. He is keenly involved in understanding the evolution of consumers' online behavior and technology adoption.
Vikram came to Forrester Research through its acquisition of Jupiter Research, where he started in July 2000. Prior to Jupiter, Vikram worked at IRI, a leading market research company, where he worked closely with some of the leading CPG companies.
Vikram often appears on TV, radio, and comments in the press on the US online retail and travel industry. He has been quoted in The L.A. Times, Business Week, The New York Times, CNN Money, and American Banker. He has also appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Radio, NPR, Fox Business News, and ABC.
Vikram earned an M.B.A. from Virginia Tech and a B.Com from N.M College in Mumbai, India.
Customer reference programs are crucial to AR programs that target client advocate analysts — those who guide users and buyers. Yet AR managers report difficulty in connecting analysts to...
Professional measurement is an integral part of fully professional AR; it is not optional. But AR managers get confused about who the measurements are for, as well as what measurements to take, how...

Assessment: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
Analyst relations (AR) managers get very little time to assess their AR programs because they're so busy executing on the next apparent priority. To help, Forrester has distilled AR best practices...

This self-assessment tool helps you review your current industry analyst relations (AR) program, analyze its weaknesses, and identify what you need to change if your program is to join the best. The...

Business Impact: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
It's understandable that AR newcomers think — or maybe just hope — that there's a one-size-fits-all AR program that they can apply to their companies. After all, they're short on money,...
Strategic Plan: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
Analyst relations (AR) managers constantly ask us how to prove the value of their AR programs. Worryingly, so do some of their bosses. Unfortunately, many struggle because they didn't build plans to...

Analyst relations (AR) people are weighing the opportunities and threats posed by social media, but many take a backward approach to developing a social AR strategy and begin with technology-driven...

AR managers struggle to build value-driven AR plans, let alone to articulate any resultant business value in crisp statements that convince executives of AR's worth. But the plan and the value...

Analyst relations (AR) people are fretting about the opportunities and threats posed by social media, their worries fed by uncertainty about which aspects of social media will be important and how....

Branded vendor comparisons from well-known research firms hold a very special place in analyst relations (AR) programs. Excluded vendors want to be included in them, and those already there jockey...
Executive Overview: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
Industry analyst relations (AR) is a profession. Done well, it delivers high business value through unique resources — industry analysts. But vendors understand its value poorly and resource it...

Landscape: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
The industry analyst relations (AR) tradition of supporting marketing and sales all too easily limits AR when the parent vendor faces greater business challenges elsewhere. Furthermore, whether AR is...

Branded vendor comparisons from well-known research firms hold a very special place in analyst relations (AR) programs. Excluded vendors want to be included in them, and those already there jockey...
Branded vendor comparisons from well-known research firms hold a very special place in analyst relations (AR) programs. Excluded vendors want to be included in them, and those already there jockey...
Influence: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
Most valuable AR programs rely, sometimes exclusively, on analysts enhancing the commercial fortunes of the vendors by influencing marketplace players like buyers, partners, journalists, and...

Analyst relations (AR) professionals are weighing the opportunities and threats posed by social media, but many take a backward approach to developing a social AR strategy. They often begin with...

Analyst relations (AR) managers want to influence what analysts write and present. Yet they miss the opportunity to supply publishable content because they send stock collateral instead, and they...
The Role Of Active Hosts In Briefing Success
Neustar has dramatically increased the level of analyst acceptances of briefing requests, the coverage it gains from those briefings, and the willingness of analysts to offer help in the form of...
Branded vendor comparisons from well-known research firms hold a very special place in analyst relations (AR) programs. Excluded vendors want to be included in them, and those already there jockey...
Supporting Sales Is The Hardest Challenge For AR
A bewildering array of options besets industry analyst relations (AR) as it tries to identify the value it can bring to a high-tech supplier. A recent Forrester survey shows that AR reports fair...
AR's Measurement And Achievement Of Sales Contribution Is Improving
Myriad options puzzle industry analyst relations (AR) professionals as they try to measure the value they bring to high-tech vendors and to deliver consistently against related targets. A Forrester...
Communications (comms) AR — characterized by programs of outreach to analysts with no clearer view of value beyond this — is weak. It's bad for your company, and, if you aspire to a top...

Vision: The Industry Analyst Relations Playbook
What are the attributes of a first-class AR professional running a first-class AR program? In this report, we visualize the peak of your profession by showing how different it is from commonplace AR....
