The Michelin-Star Analyst in a Fast-Food Market
From the Kiosk to the Table: Why a True Industry Analyst Still Matters
I have been thinking about this a great deal lately, and oddly enough, the reflection sharpened while planning an intense stretch of work in Denmark this April.
I will be busy there, as I usually am when I travel, meeting with organizations, working through RFPs, discussing requirements, evaluating solutions, and engaging the broader market in real-world conversations. That is how I work. I do not believe meaningful market intelligence comes from sitting at a distance and processing submissions. It comes from being in the field. It comes from seeing how organizations actually struggle with decisions, where software succeeds, where it fails, where implementations break down, where services firms add value, and where the market is selling confidence without substance.
As I added several more days to my Denmark trip, I managed to secure reservations at Alchemist in Copenhagen. That, in itself, was reason enough to smile. Alchemist is not simply a restaurant. It is an experience. It is a place where every detail matters, where expertise guides the evening, where the experience is intentional, curated, and deeply personal. And as I thought about that reservation, and about the work I would be doing across Denmark before and around it, it struck me just how powerfully this contrasts with what is happening in the analyst industry today . . .
Too much of what passes for industry analysis now feels like walking into a fast-food restaurant and ordering from a kiosk.
You touch a screen. You get a standardized menu. The process is efficient, mechanical, and impersonal. The system does not know your tastes. It does not understand the occasion. It does not guide you to what is truly worth your time. It cannot tell you what to avoid. It cannot explain what pairs well together. It cannot call over the sommelier when the question becomes more nuanced. It gives you an output, but not an experience. It gives you an answer, but not wisdom.
That, increasingly, is what the large analyst firms have become.
By contrast, the true industry analyst, the kind of analyst I have always sought to be, in my 26 years as an analyst, and the kind I believe the market still desperately needs, is much more like the Michelin-star dining experience. The true analyst is not a kiosk. The true analyst is the informed guide. The trusted waiter. The professional who knows the menu, understands the kitchen, asks the right questions, learns what matters to the guest, and then helps shape the right experience. And when the moment calls for deeper specialization, the true analyst knows how to bring in the equivalent of the sommelier: the implementation expert, the specialist practitioner, the professional services perspective, the lived customer reality.
That is what meaningful analyst work should deliver.
The growing problem in the analyst industry
I have watched the major analyst firms commoditize their research as several continue to lose revenue and conduct layoffs. In doing so, they are losing something essential. They are losing relevance. They are losing trust. And yes, they are losing revenue because buyers increasingly sense the difference between generic process and genuine insight.
The old model of industry analysis, at its best, was relational, investigative, and grounded. It required analysts to spend time with buyers, to challenge solution providers, to sit through real demonstrations, to interview actual client references, to understand implementation realities, and to evaluate the broader ecosystem surrounding technology decisions. It was labor-intensive, but it produced insight that mattered.
Now, much of that has been replaced with shortcuts.
Instead of insisting on live demonstrations, some firms ask providers to submit recorded video demos. I find that deeply problematic. You can make almost anything look good in a video. A vendor can script the flow, avoid weak areas, skip over awkward transitions, hide usability issues, and present a polished fantasy rather than operational reality. A recorded demo may be tidy, but it is not truth. Truth is found in a live session where the analyst can interrupt and say . . .
“Stop there. Show me how this works across departments. Show me the exception path. Show me the reporting. Show me how you handle changes in regulatory obligations. Show me what this looks like when the process gets messy.”
That is where facts emerge.
The same issue applies to customer validation. Instead of talking live to client references, some firms rely on web surveys. Again, this is not the same thing. It is not even close. A survey gives you a set of answers. A conversation gives you understanding. In a survey, you rarely find the hesitation, the caveat, the side comment, the frustration, the work-around, the nuance that reveals what it is really like to buy, implement, and use a solution. And too often, I have discovered, the solution providers provide the answers for their client references to submit to these surveys to “make it easier” for them.
In a live conversation, I can ask why the customer chose the solution, what almost made them walk away, what the provider did well, what went wrong, what functionality is still missing, what the partner brought to the engagement, and what they would do differently if they had to start over.
And then I can follow the rabbit trails . . . Those rabbit trails matter. In fact, they are often where the truth lives.
Now we are also seeing more pressure to let AI answer buyer inquiries. I am enthusiastic about the role of AI in many areas. I have written and spoken extensively on the future of AI in GRC and beyond. But I do not confuse automation with judgment. I do not confuse generated answers with experienced counsel. AI can accelerate access to information. It cannot replace the informed discernment that comes from years in the field, thousands of conversations, direct observation of markets, and a willingness to challenge what looks polished on the surface.
What buyers need in complex markets is not just information. They need interpretation. They need perspective. They need context. They need someone who has been there, seen it, tested it, challenged it, and knows how to separate hype from substance.
Why the kiosk fails the buyer
The kiosk is not evil. It is simply limited.
It is built for standardization. It is built for scale. It is built to move people through a process efficiently. But analyst research is not supposed to be a mass-produced meal. It is supposed to be informed guidance through a complex decision.
When buyers are evaluating technology, especially in difficult markets, they do not need an impersonal interface that spits out generic recommendations. They need someone to understand their context.
- What are they actually trying to solve?
- What is their maturity?
- What are their regulatory exposures?
- What is their operating model?
- What level of configuration can they realistically support?
- What internal competencies do they have?
- Where are the fault lines in process, data, and ownership?
- What cultural issues will affect adoption?
- What dependencies will shape success?
A kiosk does not ask those questions well. A true analyst does.
At a Michelin-star restaurant, the experience begins with understanding the guest. The waiter guides, advises, suggests, and calibrates. They do not merely hand over options. They help make sense of them. They know what works together. They know what is excellent tonight. They know where the kitchen shines. And if you want to go deeper, they bring in the sommelier, someone with specialized expertise who can help craft a more complete experience.
That is a much better metaphor for how analyst work should function.
What a true industry analyst actually delivers
A true industry analyst delivers much more than market reports, rankings, and graphics. A true analyst delivers clarity.
That clarity starts with buyer needs and requirements. Too often, evaluations begin with the solutions and work backward. I think that is precisely the wrong place to start. The starting point must be the buyer:
- the objectives they are trying to achieve,
- the uncertainty they are trying to navigate,
- the integrity they are trying to maintain, and
- the capabilities they need to build.
The analyst has to understand not just a list of requirements, but the business and operational context in which those requirements exist.
From there, the analyst evaluates how software solutions actually map to those needs. Not in theory. Not in marketing slides. Not in a recorded vendor-submitted video. In reality.
- How does the solution perform?
- How flexible is it?
- How deep is the functionality?
- How coherent is the data model?
- How usable is it?
- How scalable is it?
- Where does it excel?
- Where does it require work-arounds?
- What does it take to make it successful?
- How much depends on implementation quality?
- How much depends on content?
- How much depends on internal governance?
And then there is the role of professional services firms . . . which is often underappreciated in market evaluations and yet critically important. A solution is not merely software. In many cases it is software plus implementation capability, configuration expertise, process design, integration knowledge, industry context, training, managed services, and long-term support. A weak services ecosystem can undermine an otherwise promising product. A strong services partner can elevate the value of a platform by helping the buyer operationalize it effectively. If you are not looking at the role of services, you are not looking at the complete market reality.
This is why I have long believed that good industry analysis must connect the full chain: buyer needs, solution capability, and services delivery.
Why this matters so much in GRC
This is especially true in governance, risk management, and compliance.
GRC is not a simple, clean, neatly bounded software market. It is broad, interconnected, and often misunderstood. It touches performance, objectives, risk, compliance, audit, policy, regulatory change, third-party risk, cyber risk, operational resilience, internal control, sustainability, investigations, incident management, and more. It spans industries, functions, lines of defense, and regulatory regimes. It is shaped by business objectives, uncertainty, and integrity. It is affected by organization structure, culture, process maturity, and technology architecture.
That means simplistic evaluations are especially dangerous in GRC.
A solution can look impressive in a narrow demo and still be the wrong fit for the organization. A platform can sit in the upper right of some glossy analyst graphic and still fail to meet the buyer’s actual needs. Another solution may not photograph as well in a two-dimensional ranking but may be far better aligned to the organization’s use case, maturity, and budget. This is why context matters so much. This is why I do not trust abstracted evaluations that reduce a complex decision to a picture.
I know how those graphics are made. I wrote four Forrester Waves during my time at Forrester. I understand the mechanics. I understand the desire to present market choices in a concise visual form. But I also understand how many bad decisions can result from taking a multidimensional market and flattening it into a two-dimensional graphic.
A quadrant or wave may create the illusion of clarity. It does not necessarily produce actual clarity. Markets are not that simple. Buyer needs are not that simple. GRC certainly is not that simple.
My approach: I require seeing and hearing the truth
My own view is straightforward . . .
I want to see the solution. In fact, I require seeing the solution. I am not interested in a choreographed video that lets a provider edit away the rough edges. I want live demonstrations where I can ask hard questions and go off script. I want to see how the solution really works, not merely how marketing wants it to appear.
I also require talking to client references. If a solution provider cannot provide live customer references, that raises immediate red flags for me, and I believe it should for buyers as well. I want to talk to those clients directly. I want to know why they selected the solution, what they hoped to achieve, what the experience was really like, what disappointed them, what functionality is missing, what went sideways in implementation, where the partner helped, where the provider underdelivered, and whether they would make the same decision again.
Those conversations are invaluable because they do not stay on the surface. They lead to follow-up questions. They reveal contradictions. They expose assumptions. They show where success was earned and where it was merely claimed.
But I do not stop with provider-arranged references . . .
As I travel the world, I make myself available to meet with organizations of all sizes and industries, whether or not they were introduced by the providers I cover. Those conversations often give me even more valuable perspective because they are less curated and more candid. I hear what organizations really struggle with. I hear what they wish they had known earlier. I hear how the market is behaving from the buyer’s seat, not just the provider’s podium. There are times I have had twelve meetings in one day while visiting a city . . . and that is true market research, analyst work!
I also spend time with the professional services firms implementing and advising on these solutions. That matters immensely. Services firms often know where the bones are buried. They know which platforms are elegant in a demo but difficult in the field. They know where configuration becomes complexity. They know where content is weak, where integrations break, where change management is underestimated, and where the difference between success and failure lies not in the feature list but in the delivery model.
And then there is the RFP work . . .
I roll up my sleeves and go deep in RFPs and objective advisory because that is where theory meets consequences. In those moments, requirements have to become real. Trade-offs have to be faced. Provider narratives have to be tested. This is where one sees whether a solution truly fits the buyer’s needs or merely sounds good in broad analyst language. It is one thing to discuss a market at thirty thousand feet. It is another thing entirely to help an organization make a decision that will shape operations, risk visibility, compliance posture, and investment for years to come.
That is real analyst work!
This is what GRC 20/20 Research is built to do
This is also exactly what I have built GRC 20/20 Research to deliver in the analyst world, as well as its sister company with the team at GRC Report to expand this to governance, risk management, and compliance news from around the world and curated expert commentary and insights.
GRC 20/20 Research provides clarity of insight into governance, risk management, and compliance solutions and strategies through objective market research, benchmarking, training, and analysis. We provide independent and objective insight into leading GRC practices and processes, including market dynamics and intelligence, risk, regulatory and technology trends, competitive landscapes, market sizing, expenditure priorities, and mergers and acquisitions.
But more than that, GRC 20/20 serves the entire ecosystem . . .
We serve buyers, the organizations purchasing and deploying GRC solutions and trying to navigate through a noisy, fast-changing, and often confusing market. We serve professional services firms that help organizations implement, operationalize, and optimize GRC strategies and technology. And we serve solution providers, helping them better understand market demand, buyer requirements, product direction, competitive positioning, partner strategies, and growth opportunities.
That is why I describe GRC 20/20 in three connected ways.
- First, we are a buyer advocate. I help organizations navigate hyperbole to select solutions that are practical and can actually deliver on requirements. Simply put, I help buyers select the right solution or set of solutions for their needs and get the most from their investment.
- Second, we are a solution strategist. I help GRC solution providers understand buyer demand and improve product, marketing, sales, partner, content, and growth strategies. Simply put, I help good GRC solutions become great GRC solutions.
- Third, we are a market evangelist. I educate and advocate for GRC strategies that deliver value and results through the right combination of technology, content, and services. Simply put, I define the future of GRC and help the market understand where it is headed.
These roles are connected. They have to be. You cannot advise buyers well unless you truly understand the provider landscape. You cannot guide providers well unless you understand buyer pain and market direction. You cannot evangelize the market well unless you are grounded in the reality of what works in practice.
Denmark, Alchemist, and the reminder of what excellence feels like
That is why this upcoming Denmark trip has stayed in my mind . . . I will be there doing what I always do: meeting with organizations, working through practical selection and strategy issues, engaging RFPs, discussing the market, and learning directly from those who live these challenges every day. That is not separate from analyst work. That is analyst work.
And then, because I extended the trip several more days, I will get to experience Alchemist!
I find that fitting.
Alchemist is known not for speed or standardization, but for depth, intentionality, craft, and an immersive experience guided by people who understand precisely what they are delivering. It is not simply about receiving food. It is about being led through an experience by people who know what matters and how to make the whole greater than the parts.
That is the opposite of a kiosk. And that is the opposite of commoditized analyst research.
The more I thought about it, the more the analogy stayed with me. Too much of the analyst industry is becoming a kiosk: impersonal, generic, efficient, and detached. Meanwhile, what buyers truly need, especially in a market as nuanced and consequential as GRC, is something much closer to the Michelin-star model: personal guidance, informed recommendation, contextual judgment, and the ability to bring in deeper expertise when necessary.
That is the kind of analyst experience I believe in. That is the kind of analyst experience I work to deliver.
The future belongs to trusted guides, not generic outputs
The future of industry analysis does not belong to those who commoditize insight into templates, surveys, videos, rankings, and automated responses. That may scale, but scale alone does not create relevance. It creates volume. Buyers are not starving for volume. They are starving for judgment.
The future belongs to trusted guides . . . It belongs to analysts who know how to connect buyer needs to solution realities and to the services ecosystem that makes outcomes possible. It belongs to analysts who are willing to ask hard questions, dig into uncomfortable truths, challenge polished narratives, and stay close to what is really happening in the field. It belongs to analysts who see markets not as graphics to be produced, but as ecosystems to be understood.
In GRC, perhaps more than anywhere else, this matters. The stakes are too high, the complexity too great, and the consequences too real to settle for kiosk thinking.
That is why I still believe so strongly in objective, rigorous, hands-on industry analysis. It is why I still insist on seeing the solution. It is why I still insist on talking to customers. It is why I spend time with professional services firms. It is why I stay engaged in RFPs. It is why I travel, meet, listen, challenge, and learn.
And it is why, as I prepare for Denmark, balancing a demanding schedule of real work in the GRC market with the anticipation of an evening at Alchemist, I am reminded of a simple truth:
When the choice matters, no one really wants a kiosk . . . They want a guide.