Forrester Research Reviews

Pros

-Dynamic and challenging
-Freedom to research whatever it is that interests you
 -Flexibility to"ask for forgiveness rather than permission"
-Great managers
-Competitive pay and benefits

Cons

-Rigorous workload
-Can be very hectic at times

Advice to Senior Management

We need more opportunities to foster inter-department collaborations

Pros

- Stimulating job.
- Opportunity to meet with companies across the world in all kinds of industries.
- Being paid to think.
- Tremendous variety of work: writing; speaking; media interviews; quant analysis; travel; etc. etc.
- Interesting & smart colleagues.

Cons

- High pressure, with just brief relief at each quarter start.
- Unpredictable client demands makes planning any social life impossible.
- Quarterly targets, including high $ consultancy targets for analysts that are also expected to deliver research reports for the subscription/syndicated offering.
- Out of touch senior management.
- Increasingly, US-based and US-focused decision making. This damages Forrester's ability to compete outside the US.
- Highly hierarchical management culture that encourages only good news to go upward.
- Large company culture, but deludes itself that it still has a small company culture.
- Research is usually not peer reviewed and discussed, often only a single editor reviews an analysts' work. Why? Analysts and other research staff are too busy meeting consultancy $ targets...

Advice to Senior Management

- Fix the cons -- esp. address work/life balance.
- Stop encouraging staff to only tell you what you want/expect to hear -- actually listen.
- Forrester prides itself on having the highest productivity per analyst in the industry. This comes at a high cost. The pressure you place on research staff is damaging Forrester and the quality of Forrester's output. If not resolved, this will hit Forrester's bottom line.

Pros

Great individuals, a lot of good will, a lot of freedom, good work life balance on lower levels

Cons

No direction, no vision, no leadership, number and matrics based only, immature management, oldfashioned and hierarchical, totally intranparent, no communication

Advice to Senior Management

Get away from your desks and meetingrooms in Cambridge, listen to your own people, listen to your clients, wake up

Pros

Good name to have on your resume. Fun, intelligent people to work with, relaxed working environment

Cons

Very few opportunities for advancement/promotions, while on the surface it seems to be the case that there are many. Forrester is a highly political place (even though this is only typical of a much larger company) - you can only win if you know the game and play by the rules. There is an unbelievable amount of red-tape to jump through in order to accomplish the smallest task (at the expense of productivity and quality), and employees are encouraged to invent more "processes" in order to receive praise/promotions, which is extremely counterproductive. The HR department is bloated with unnecessary made-up positions. The turn-over is very high, no doubt due to inadequate level of compensation compared to other similar companies, and no appreciation whatsoever for the hard effort and the extra hours.

Advice to Senior Management

Slash half of HR, reduce the number of processes and instead focus on the quality of deliverables.

Pros

Surrounded by brilliant people
Room to grow your career here
Opportunity for promotion
receive apprectiation for hard work
flexible when necessary

Cons

Competitive to get an interview with Forrester
Pay scale is less than competitors
Sales is extremely competitve
Tough competition with up for promotion

Advice to Senior Management

Appreciate employees and make the salaries up to speed with competitors
Provide plans earlier in the year so sales understands what they are up against

Pros

Many intelligent people working there
Still has a good reputation

Cons

Current management is not up to the job and has turned the analysts into sales people in response to revenue pressure. This is not a good fit for the kind of person who makes a good analyst.
Sales staff uneven and often doesn't understand topic areas well enough to sell them

Advice to Senior Management

Put George Colony back in charge and find a competent COO to help him restore the company

Pros

Quality of people
Reputation and influence with clients
Relaxed work atmosphere
Very intellectually stimulating work

Cons

Top management disconnected from rank-and-file
Small organization managed like a giant corporation
High level of politics
IT infrastructure from the '90s

Advice to Senior Management

Walk the talk and follow the advice analysts are giving to clients
Improve collaboration across teams with incentives
Develop a clear long-term strategy for growth
Go private

Pros

The people are fun and smart and it's a social place to work.
The benefits are excellent.
Management is pretty open.
Very good place for young people to start a career. Over 80% of employees are under 30

Cons

Carreer path is not good at all and no way to advance in sales.
If your in sales you dont get promotions and the pay is very low compaired to competitors.
Management is always looking to pay sales less commission each year and the only people that get stock are directors.
It's an old boys club and you get promoted if you know the right people.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to reduce the turn over in sales then pay them better. Forrester pays less than most of their competitors. When writing research take your own dog food. Ie there is a great sales enablement practice but we don't take any of the advice at all. Worklife balance is very arbitrary and sales it treated like teenagers. If you give your employees a work life balance and flexibility they will want to work harder for you. Everyone who has been at certain length of time should given minimal stock option. You ask what would motivate your employees and tie them the true values of the company? Stock would help. Even a minimal amount.

Pros

Adults work there. Not good for the 20 something set. Very accomplished and smart people in research.

Cons

Dismal pay. Middle management and VP level culture is stuck in the 90's. Very structured and inflexible.

Advice to Senior Management

Comp plan needs serious restructuring. New managers need to be hired that understand the true needs of the clients from client facing internal feedback.

Pros

Many bright, hard-working employees
Terrific resume builder
Praise for job well done
Quarterly bonus program
Great sales team
Operates with integrity toward clients

Cons

More concerned with consulting revenue rather than thought leadership or quality
Insular leadership team
No common sense of mission or vision
Competition between and within teams
Strong drive to do more with less and increase margin at expense of company's values
Mediocre technology
Frequently poor work/life balance

Advice to Senior Management

Revisit the core values and deeply consider if the priorities, company communications, structure and compensation support these values. Engage employees more--you trust them to consult with business leaders at accounts, so they should be good enough to engage for Forrester's own vision and strategies. Recruit fresh blood in leadership (and really consider what each leader has accomplished in the last year or two--there are some who have lost the faith of their reports).