Effective today, my research and advisory firm Lopez Research LLC is now a member of the Constellation Research Group. We will continue to deliver services under the Lopez Research banner, but in addition, we will now be able to leverage the resources of this brand-new membership research organization and extend our services to its clients. The mobile market is growing rapidly and spans multiple industry sectors including devices, software, media and communications services. Our mission is to constantly provide the best advice to our clients. This partnership with Constellation enables Lopez Research to provide greater depth across verticals such as government as well as application technology areas such as CRM and collaboration. You can expect the same great service and even better content. We’re very excited about the partnership. More details on the organization can be found below.

What is Constellation Research Group?
Constellation is a next-generation research firm, comprising member analysts who take a multi-disciplinary approach to enterprise research topics. Our main mission serves the needs of technology buyers and end-users who seek insight, guidance, and advice in dealing with IT.

The best analysts bridge the gap between theory and practice, and that’s what we seek to do. Our research agendas will look at cross-role, cross-functional, and cross-industry trends. Every analyst member of Constellation brings decades of practitioner experience, a strong network of other experts, and a passion to share and serve clients. We take the buyer’s perspective and make the tough calls that clients will expect of us as an independent research firms.

Our research agenda includes a number of emerging trends and technologies: enterprise applications, legacy system optimization, cloud computing, mobile computing, social networking, business analytics, game theory, and unified communications.

Who are the Members?
We have assembled a really top-notch group of analysts to participate in Constellation.

• The driving force behind Constellation is R “Ray” Wang. Ray is a former VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, and he has a long history with enterprise applications as well as other leading-edge technologies. He headed up the analyst relations program for PeopleSoft, and at Oracle, he served senior product management roles for both the ERP and CRM product lines. He was voted Analyst of the Year for both 2008 and 2009 by the prestigious Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR).
• Phil Fersht is a well-known industry analyst covering business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT services worldwide. He is the founder of the acclaimed global sourcing blog “Horses for Sources.” Before that he worked for 15 years at AMR Research (now Gartner Group), Deloitte Consulting, Everest Group, and IDC.
• Maribel Lopez brings deep industry knowledge in covering the communications industry. With over two decades of marketing as well as industry analyst experience, she has covered the massive shifts in the communication market. Maribel has worked in marketing at Motorola and Shiva corp and as an analyst for IDC. She also put in over 10 years at Forrester Research, most recently as Vice President of the tech industry strategies group, covering network and service strategies, enterprise communications, and consumer markets for voice, video, and data.
• Oliver Marks provides consulting to end-user organizations on the effective planning of collaboration strategy, tactics, technology decisions, change management and roll out. Oliver previously managed the Sony WorldWide collaboration extranet, and has worked with the American Management Association, Sun, Docent/SumTotal Systems, Harvard Business School and McKinsey on major initiatives around knowledge transfer and change management.
• Vinnie Mirchandani is another source I often quote here on the Spectator. He is a thought-leader on trends in software, outsourcing, and offshoring. He has personally assisted clients in negotiate technology contracts valued in excess of $5 billion and has advised companies on IT risk management, globalization and sourcing issues. Vinnie is the founder of Deal Architect and is a former Gartner analyst and an outsourcing executive with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Paul Papadimitriou is a big thinker on online media, its impact on how brands and individuals communicate, and the redefinition of social norms through new technologies. He has more than a decade of experience as a lobbyist and business consultant. Paul is the editor in chief for Mobile in Japan. He’s also helped organize conferences around the world, from Tokyo 2.0 & the worldwide Geeks on a Plane series of events to the Internet & Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines Summit.
• Sameer Patel is another expert in collaboration technologies. He has more than a decade of experience managing initiatives for large organizations to drive lead generation, partner network optimization, sales and marketing effectiveness, customer acquisition, and employee productivity via communication and collaboration technologies. Sameer’s clients include Ingres, Sun Microsystems, KPMG, McKesson HBOC, WR WrigleyCo., The Sabre Group, Grupo Televisa (Mx), and Cardinal Health.
• Alan Silberberg is a leading analyst in Gov 2.0. He speaks on transformational change, crisis and brand communications, and government 2.0 and the crossover into business and technology. Alan has government and private sector experience, having served in the U.S. White House, at Paramount Pictures and numerous technology companies as an advisor, founder or investor. His clients have included the Vatican Global Licensing group, currently elected officials, and former elected officials as well as numerous technology startups. He is focused on the business side of Government 2.0 and how the technology platforms create commercial ventures and new markets. He is the founder of Gov20LA which is the first west coast un-conference for Gov 2.0 tech.
• Frank Scavo is the co-founder of Strativa, a management consulting firm providing business and IT advice to end-user organizations. He has over 20 years of experience in IT strategy, IT management metrics, enterprise applications, and business process improvement, serving end-users in a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, life sciences, consumer products, high-tech, distribution, retail distribution, and information services. He is especially skilled at aligning business and IT strategy, developing the business case for new systems, and facilitating the selection of enterprise systems, such as ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. He is also an expert in benchmarking IT spending and staffing levels for end-user IT organizations. Frank is a Certified Fellow in Production and Inventory Management (CFPIM) by APICS, the Association for Operations Management. He is also the President of Computer Economics, an IT research and metrics firm, founded in 1979.

Constellation Service Offerings

We work with our clients to tailor programs of access through open research, syndicated research, and one-on-one interactive engagement. Advisory services include:

Visit the Constellation Research Group website for more information, or simply contact me if you are interested in our services.

In addition, we have a great group on our Board of Advisors that provide mentorship, guidance, and general research advice:

• Paul Greenberg (@pgreenbe)
• Dennis Howlett (@dahowlett)
• Erin Kinkin
• Esteban Kolsky (@ekolsky)
• Brian Solis (@briansolis)

Additional members have and are expected to join Constellation Research Group in the coming months.  Stay tuned for their announcements over the next few months!

Visit the Constellation Research Group website for more information, or simply contact me if you are interested in possibly becoming a subscriber.