Unless you were living under a rock, sales leaders everywhere woke up this week to the news that Forrester would acquire SiriusDecisions for $245MM in cash. Forrester will help bring SiriusDecisions’ data and consulting tools to new verticals while SiriusDecisions will, in turn, add $100MM in revenue in 2019 and double Forrester’s potential market in strategy from $20B to $40B by opening up B2B industries. The acquisition highlights a number of important strategic considerations for CRO’s and sales leaders everywhere.
First, this acquisition highlights the need to be able to reach new verticals and new roles.
One of the major points brought up following the announcement is the value that SiriusDecisions will add from a vertical standpoint. The company will bring Forrester into financial services, retail, healthcare, energy and utility verticals where they were lacking before. As mentioned above, this represents an almost doubling of the total market opportunity available to the combined business. SiriusDecisions heavily markets a B2B product, which also represents a building block on top of the B2C products that Forrester offers.
Second, the acquisition highlights the increasing importance of data.
In July, Forrester bought customer feedback player FeedbackNow and the analytics company GlimpzIt. All focused on data and analytics and Forrester plans to use them as the engines to evolve its CX (customer experience) Index into a real-time CX Cloud. We envision SiriusDecisions joining this party and likely becoming a part of their CX strategy.
Second to this, the “Sirius Way” was heavily focused on data intensive optimization of marketing, sales and product operations through product like their famous Demand Waterfall. This acquisition continues the trend of data as a key asset and will likely set Forrester apart from a product standpoint.
Third, this acquisition highlights the increasing need to expand globally.
Another core tenant of the acquisition is the ability for Forrester to immediately expand globally. Forrester mentions they will accelerate international growth plans, especially through the selling of the SiriusDecisions product via the Forrester global sales force and channel programs. As the national market continues to consolidate and mature, companies like Forrester are moving internationally and increasing their product offering to meet revenue and profit goals.
As sales leaders, the acquisition should not come as much of a shock given the natural complementary nature of the business and both businesses performance in keeping ahead of the rapidly changing market. What all sales leaders should note is the application of these lessons to their own organization in an ever-increasing market. In doing so, you’ll steepen the arc of your evolution and build for more success.
