Global Analyst Relations Leader - BMC (1475319)

The Global Analyst Relations leader’s role is to work closely with the business to enhance EY’s reputation and strategic position in the marketplace by building strong relationships with an influential network of analysts (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Source, HFS etc.).  The role is focused on increasing market visibility, credibility and differentiation for EY’s brand, services, innovation, differentiated point of view, solution portfolio and executive team.  This requires a strategic and proactive approach and capability.

The opportunity

Being able to leverage the depth and breadth of EY holistically, including ecosystem relationships, is also key to this role and strategically important to EY. The Analyst Relations leader aims to achieve positive commentary and leading analyst rankings to enable EY to drive increased sales and gain market share from the competition. This requires skills to build positive relationships and influence with analysts. The analyst relations team generates revenue for EY through analyst client referrals and increases the win rate of client pitches with leadership reports.  Importantly, the market and many clients use the information from these analysts to benchmark the broad consulting, technology and industry sector capabilities of EY against its competitors including EY capabilities in Consulting, Tax, Assurance and Strategy and Transactions service lines.

With the above remit, the Analyst Relations leader needs to be able to navigate, work with and influence very senior EY stakeholders, requires the buy-in and co-ordination of client references and have a deep knowledge of EY/service capabilities. EY’s analyst relations team is also responsible for bringing EY’s key messages to influential analysts including challenging them on occasion, necessitating a high level of quality and risk management.  It also involves convening analysts at EY-hosted events, and gaining intelligence from the analyst community to inform the business on what clients across the market are focused on including; market share, where to invest, the competitive landscape, and providing supporting evidence to substantiate management decisions. 

Given the rapidly changing market and the need to build our brand/close brand gaps in technology, consulting, data capabilities and industry sector expertise - the Analyst Relations leader needs to have a clear understanding of those EY capabilities and collaborate closely with other BMC colleagues in service lines and sectors, PR/social and the brand team to deliver an impactful and cohesive program contributing to EY’s ambition to be the world’s most trusted and distinctive professional services organization.

Your key responsibilities

The Analyst Relations leader manages a team that carry out the following functional responsibilities to deliver on the strategy:

• Analyst Relations Programme planning: developing and executing a strategic Analyst engagement program globally across priority sectors and SLs.
• Analyst briefings: responding to requests and seeking briefing opportunities, guiding briefing presentation development, providing content and reviewing survey submissions, securing and prepping client references, leading preparation sessions with spokespeople, hosting briefings and leading follow up activities. 
• Analyst Webcasts: execute on agreed schedule/topics, liaise with business leaders and ensure analysts are notified in advance to ensure good turnout, develop content, host session.
• Analyst Inquiries: accessing analyst insights throughout the year on behalf of EY, and providing feedback to the business (for example, the annual Analyst perception survey).
• Strategy Advisory Sessions: planning strategy session agenda, co-ordinating attendees, communication with analysts, leaders to set expectations and agree outcomes. Hosting and leading session incl follow up. 
• Analyst/Market insights: reporting back to leadership current business consulting trends through email updates based on Analyst report findings. Leading custom research projects on priority business issues such as managed services, asset based consulting etc. 
• Executive Partner Program: mapping of analysts to leaders, agree on targets, set up pro-active face to face meetings in calendar for rest of FY to develop trusted relationships with analysts.
• (Analyst) Events: arranging and co-ordinating industry Analyst Events across the globe, EY Analyst summits and roundtables, incl sponsorship of events, resulting in positive coverage for EY and greater understanding by analyst community of EY’s leadership in the market. 
• PR/SM: collaborating with PR to promote positive reports in press releases and via social media, obtaining analyst quotes in news announcements, analyst pre-briefs ahead of announcements to put forward positive analysts to the press.
• Analyst Portal: proactive communications channel for Analysts wanting direct access to new EY content, with regular push notifications to analyst community.
• Marketing/Measurement: collaborating with wider BMC in sales and marketing campaign development to leverage Analyst results. Tracking of EY leadership in ranking reports in support of client bids. Measurement of EY’s performance across leadership rankings, and perception of EY through annual analyst survey. 
• Contract negotiation: negotiating Analyst research firm contracts on an annual basis.
• Team leadership: regular team calls to align and ensure close co-ordination around analyst outreach – coaching of team members, restructuring team coverage to reflect new business priorities, hiring and onboarding new talent. 

Skills and attributes for success

The role requires a high level of autonomy and proactiveness to initiate activity and influence relevant analysts to help build EY’s reputation.

• The Analyst Relations Leader needs to decide where to align team resources and prioritize efforts to get the maximum positive return for EY.
• The role also includes supervising, shaping and guiding the analysis carried out by the team.

Much of the analysis that is derived from the Analyst Relations team helps inform the business on market trends, market share, where to invest, the competitive landscape, and to provide supporting evidence to substantiate management decisions. (Examples are Source Global Research sector sizing, Gartner Managed Services project, Forrester Asset Based Consulting project, Gartner/IDC market share reports, Source Global Research country/geo/sector reports)

To qualify for the role you must have

• Developing strategic plans with input and buy-in from internal stakeholders to set an annual direction for AR
• As analyst relations is a relatively niche functional capability with a limited pool of experts in the market, the person fulfilling this role needs to have a thorough understanding of the leading analyst firms as well as some of the smaller boutiques, how they and their methodologies differ, what it is that analysts need to do their job effectively, what will make them consider EY in a more positive light.
• Relationship building capabilities – knowing the analysts inside out / how they perceive EY, where they consider us to be weak, and building on those relationships. 
• Technical knowledge – in preparation for analyst briefings the AR professional needs to be able to advise what to incl/excl from the briefing, where to focus, it requires a thorough understanding of our business in order to be able to best advise what to showcase to the analysts. 
• The AR leader should also have a good understanding of market trends and the competitive landscape to be able to advise on EY’s positioning in a wider context. 
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• Continuous learning: You’ll develop the mindset and skills to navigate whatever comes next.
• Success as defined by you: We’ll provide the tools and flexibility, so you can make a meaningful impact, your way.
• Transformative leadership: We’ll give you the insights, coaching and confidence to be the leader the world needs.
• Diverse and inclusive culture: You’ll be embraced for who you are and empowered to use your voice to help others find theirs.