There are several reasons why analysts leave a firm: just want a change or new professional challenge, recruited by another company, desire to start own firm, the current employer has grown too large and its culture has changed and a few others. In this current sitaution, there are two primary reasons why the analysts are leaving: lured by startups and hanging out their own shingle.

From late 1997 to early 2000 a number of analysts covering ecommerce/ebusiness got lured away from the firms by Dot Com startups. For example, in one week Gartner lost four of five analysts covering ecommerce. Yes, they were lured away by various startups dangling stock options, but these analysts were also annoyed at the money Gartner was investing in Jupiter Communications (ancestor of JupiterResearch) rather than beefing up Gartner's own ecommerce/ebusiness research team.

Another common reason for analysts in a hot research area to leave a firm is to capitalize on their personal brand by setting up a single practitioner or boutique firm. This approach provides the departing analyst more flexibility and the perception - not always realized - that they can make more money on their own than as a salaried employee at a large firm.

In this situation, Brian, Peter and Rachel left for hot startups, while Charlene is hanging out her own shingle. Typical.

Another point to put these departures into context is normal employee turnover. If an analyst firm keeps its analyst workforce turnover under 3% (which would be a really good retention rate) that would still mean that Forrester would lose 11 analysts annually, IDC 24 and Gartner 20. So losing a few analysts, even in a clump and on a hot topic, is not necessarily an indication of problems at a firm.

Bottom Line: Rather than jump to conclusions that the departures of multiple analysts in the same hot research topic represent dire implications for a firm or analyst industry, members of the analyst ecosystem should step back and calmly analyze the situation. Are the departures a typical response to a hot research area? Or do the departures represent a systemic problem for a firm?

Question: Have you seen other bursts of analysts leaving firms? If so, what topics and when?

Think about the bigger picture. Changes in Forrester's social media research team have been quite "interesting" lately with new hires, significant departures, the Groundswell book publication and the acquisition and integration of JupiterResearch.

Forrester can rightly claim that it has sufficient social media research head count on staff because of the JupiterResearch acquisition and new hires. However, the constant churn in the ranks of analysts on a single team poses real threats to continuity, productivity and quality in the short to medium run.  Also new hires do not equal experienced staff.

Remember, most analyst firms - including Forrester - have not invested in knowledge management systems. Without the infrastructure and the culture to capture data electronically, information that analysts harvest in vendor briefings and from other sources is stored between their ears, which means that it walks out the door if they leave the firm. For vendors, the result is that they are back at square one when it comes to a firm's knowledge and context about the vendor. For research consumers, whether end user or vendor, significant churn in analyst ranks can result in working with analysts who might be smart, but do not have the breadth and depth of information and context as their former colleagues.

Some other analyst industry observers will no doubt be hyperventilating about the dire implications for Forrester these departures entail. Calm down. Take a deep breath. While a temporary setback for a particular Forrester analyst team, these bursts of departures from a hot research area are not unique (see here).

SageCircle clients can call to schedule an inquiry to obtain best practices on what to do when an analyst leaves a firm and brainstorm on the implications for their company. These best practices are also available in the Online SageContent^TM Library.

SageCircle Technique:

• AR professionals - Create a standard process for when top analysts depart
• AR professionals - Aggressively seek to brief interim or permanent replacements for departing analysts
• End users - For analysts who are not familiar, determine the tenure of the analysts for inquiries (e.g., a quick search on the firm's website will show how long an analyst has been publishing)
• End users - Use inquiry best practices to determine the breadth and depth of data points any analyst is using for the advice they are giving you

Bottom Line: This news is just a reminder to analyst relations professionals that they need to have a process in place for dealing with a departing analyst. Any departure of a key analyst from your list should send you into dynamic action. These departures represent an opportunity for competitive advantage for those vendors who act quickly and educate the new analysts.

Question: Vendors - Have you briefed Brian Haven since July 18^th? Did he mention he was leaving Forrester?

Shameless Marketing - If you missed the webinar, you can schedule a SageCircle "AR Briefing" on Twitter for you and your colleagues. Click here for a brochure or contact us at 650-274-8309 for more information.

Q: What about firms that follow you? Do you recommend letting them follow you? (e.g., Gartner)

A: Firm handles (e.g., @forrester, @Gartner_inc and @the451group) are typically used to promote the firm. For example, @the451group is used to announce research note publications and @Gartner_inc is used by the Gartner PR team as a press release wire. @forrester is often used at Forrester events to facilitate info to attendees and accept questions during sessions. There is little or no downside to letting them follow you. On the other hand, you should carefully consider whether you should follow them. Because they are marketing tools, they could add clutter to your timeline without necessarily giving you useful information.

Q: Why retweet? To pass along a tweet to others?

A: Retweets are used for a couple of purposes. One is to give your reply some context by including the original tweet. You will likely have to edit down the original tweet so as to not use up too many of your 140 characters because retweet text counts against the total. The second purpose is to simply pass along to your followers a tweet you think they would find interesting. Often these are announcements or news related tweets.

Q: Can you use RSS feeds to follow tweets?

A: Yes - Bloglines and other RSS readers will follow tweets. Click "How to track a lot of analyst blogs and Twitter streams without spending a lot of time" for step-by-step instructions for setting up Bloglines to track analyst tweets and blogs.

Q: What is the proper interaction protocol for analysts that you either are, or are not already working with in regards to Twitter or other social networking sites?

A: Simply follow them. There is no need to ask their permission or even interact with them via Twitter. Some analysts have lots of followers who are only spectators. However, if there is an analyst that you have decided to add your analyst list with a relevance ranking high enough for Tier 1 or Tier 2 status, Twitter can be a great way to make an initial introduction and start building a relationship.

Q: AR Strategy: Is it viable to ask analysts to start Twittering with you - even if your key influencers aren't already Twittering?

A: Absolutely. The worst that can happen is they say they are not interested in Twitter. On the other hand, some analysts might have been thinking about getting on Twitter and your invitation might encourage them to try it out.

Q: Branding: It would be good if you can give some tips on branding your Twitter - particularly for large vendors. Does having your company's branding - kill the impact of your Twitter?

A: This is a very important issue to consider: how much of your Twitter identify is yours personally versus associated with your employer. Some companies require a very explicit association of the company with the Twitter handle (e.g., @mattatdell for a Dell employee), but this is rare. In general, you want to put your employer in your Twitter profile bio (e.g., "Bob is in analyst relations at Acme Systems") so that you are easy to find in a search. However, you want the handle to be yours so if you change jobs you don't lose the followership and history built up around your handle. We think it is important that all people starting building a "personal brand," that follows you through your career.

Q: You're talking about providing information - can you conduct campaigns? Do you view it purely as a one-to-one communication tool?

A: Generally Twitter is a "broadcast" and not a private communication, so yes you can consider it a tool for campaigns, hot news and events. However, today Twitter is mostly used for 1-on-1 or small group interactions. How Twitter is used will no doubt evolve significantly over the next year or two, which is part of the fun of being an early adopter of an emerging technology.

Q: AR Strategy - how would you view 'incentivising' Twittering amongst a closed/regional community?

A: We think that is a great idea. The best incentive you can offer an analyst is more personalized access to information. For example, an AR pro could set up a twitter handle for their analyst event [e.g., AcmeSystemsAnalyst2008] with updates "protected." Only invited analysts would be permitted to follow this handle and they would get exclusive updates, color commentary on executive presentations, and the ability to submit questions for executives.

Q: Of the analysts using it, do you find there are higher concentrations of analysts from certain coverage areas?

A: Obviously analysts who cover social media are visible users, but Twitter is not the exclusive domain of social media analysts nor are they always the heaviest users. In the SageCircle Analyst Twitter Directory there are all sorts of analysts either by career stage (e.g., Novice, Luminary, Sage), type (e.g., advisory, market research) and coverage (e.g., servers, operating systems, outsourcing, PCs, enterprise systems). It gets down to whether or not as an individual the analyst likes new ways of communicating.

Q: Does the star indicate a favorite person to follow or just that specific tweet?

A: Just that specific tweet - so you can go back and find it again.

SageCircle Technique:

• Because of micro-blogging's zero startup cost, reasonable learning curve and nearly zero switching costs, AR teams should jump in and start a pilot project to experiment as described in Adding Twitter or other micro blogging tools to the AR toolbox.

• Because every analyst is a unique individual, the most important task is to Ask your analysts about their current and potential uses of social media to build an understanding of how they might like Twitter used to interact with them

Bottom Line: Social media like Twitter can be powerful interaction tools when incorporated into your overall mix of interactions. At some point, Twitter might be considered an everyday tool, so get ahead of the curve and be an early adopter in order to reap the benefits associated with being an innovator

Question: If you are not tweeting yet, why not? What are the hurdles that make you reluctant to experiment with Twitter?

An approach that rarely works is for the AR manager to turnaround and scream, whether at the analyst or the analyst's boss.  What does work is for the AR manager to step back, take a deep breath and calmly analyze the situation.

One issue that AR has is determining whether or not it even makes sense to invest any effort into turning around or countering a problem analyst. Frankly, many problem analysts are not worth the effort because they have little influence. The next issue is to determine the type of problem analyst you are confronting (e.g., pragmatist, know it all, budget vampire, well-known press hound, rock star, among others) because different types of problem analysts require different approaches.

The critical step - if the decision is to turn the analyst around - is creating a plan to address the situation. Oh, don't forget to equip your sales force with information and tools to mitigate negative commentary in the meantime. Of course AR has to do this while your executives are breathing fire down your neck.

Announcing the SageCircle "Dealing with Problem Analysts" Webinar

Our SageCircle AR Webinar will provide you with succinct and actionable information that will help you analyze your situation and determine the best approaches for dealing with problem analysts. The agenda for the 90-minute session includes:

• The business issues caused by problem analysts
• Definition of a problem analyst
• The types of problem analysts
• Decision framework for whether to invest in turning around a problem analyst
• Setting realistic expectations with your executives
• Action plan for dealing with problem analysts
• Equipping the sales force to handle prospect objections caused by problem analysts
• Measuring progress

There will be plenty of time for your questions and comments.

The cost of this information-packed session is only $95. You can register by clicking here or visiting www.SageCircle.com.  BTW, the cost is per login not per person. Feel free to schedule a meeting with your colleagues in a conference room and all of you participate via a single ticket. Then afterwards you can discuss how to apply what you learned during the webinar.

We are scheduling two sessions to make it easy for you to fit the webinar into your busy schedule. The sessions will be held at:

            Wednesday, September 17^th at 8:30 am PT and 4 pm PT

If you have any questions, please contact SageCircle at info [at] sagecircle do com or 650-274-8309.

The "Dealing with Problem Analysts" webinar is but one of SageCircle's portfolio of AR training solutions. Visit the "3/ Training" Page to learn more about SageCircle's line up of AR education offerings.

Also on any given day, an industry analyst could be working on a formal piece of research - whether a research paper, blog post, or conference presentation - that could have a shelf life of months or years.

A critical fact is that in many cases vendors and their products that are used as positive examples of some topic or trend are not pulled from a carefully considered list, but just which ever vendor was top-of-mind at that particular moment. This reality puts a real premium on analyst relations (AR) teams maintaining a steady stream of touches with their key analysts. 

SageCircle Technique: 

• Develop an AR plan that schedules regular touches with key analysts
• Use a mix of interactions and topics to ensure that the analysts will find the touches interesting
• Emphasize the use of client inquiry where available
• Informally track analysts' interactions with your competitors. For example, analysts on Twitter frequently mention upcoming vendor briefings and events
• Periodically review your interactions database to ensure that an analyst has not accidently fallen between the cracks, easy to do if you have an Analyst Relationship Management (ARM) tool

Bottom Line: Maintaining top-of-mind presence is key to leveraging the analysts' influence to drive revenue growth. An analyst mentioning your company in a positive light almost acts as an implied endorsement.  While difficult to measure it can have a profound effect on sales deals and market perception.

Question: AR teams - Do you have formal or informal standards for how often you need to touch your key analysts?

Jag tänker boka upp plats på en restaurang i centrala Stockholm lördagen den 6 september så får dom som vill komma dit och ha en trevlig kväll i fotots tecken. Var och en står själv för sin mat och sin dryck.

För att jag skall få en uppfattning om hur många som kan tänka sig att komma ber jag er som vill komma att maila till mig. janne@arleklint.se

8/17/08
- The Overview has been updated.
- The Event Schedule has been posted.
- Hurricane Kayaks is donating a kayak to be given away. See the Registration page for details on how to earn entry entries into the kayak drawing!

8 Hour Course
Coed
Female
Male
- Team Moxie (2p); Matt Kelley, Jon Downie

12 Hour Course
Coed
Female
Male
- Palmetto Tarheels (3p); Dale Long, Bruce Dale, Charlie Roberts

 

Oracle Receivables - FAQ , Interview Questions ( Functional & Technical) 

Hello Friends, As part of putting Oracle Application Interview Questions for various modules, here i am putting Receivables , most of them are quite functional and link with Oracle Receivables features, still it is good to learn and know for a technical developer to get overall understanding. do share your feedback n thoughts. 

To Unearned revenue a/c

(when we raise the invoice with invoicing rule as advance)

(when we receive the payment, the number of journal entry (b) is depend upon the accounting rules which can be fixed or variable)

Accounting for invoice in arrear

a) Unbilled receivable a/c ....................Dr.

To Revenue a/c

(when we receive the payment of unbilled invoice, the number of journal entry (a) is depend upon the accounting rules which can be fixed or variable))

(when we raise the invoice, with invoicing rule arrear)

Value set is a set of possible values.

There are 8 value set types:

1.Dependent

2.Independent

3.Table

4. None

5.Pair

6.Translatable Dependent

7.Translatable Independent

8. Special

RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_LINES_ALL -- Lines information about Transaction

RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_GL_DIST_ALL - Distribution information about Transaction

RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_SALESREPS_ALL -- Sales representative of Transaction Information

AR_PAYMENT_SCHDULES_ALL - Information about Payment Schedules

AR_APPLICATION_PAYABLES_ALL

RA_INTERFACE_ERRORS - Errors in AutoInvoice Interface Data

RA_INTERFACE_LINES_ALL - Use this table to enter Header and Lines information in AutoInvoice Interface program

RA_INTERFACE_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL - Distribution Table in AutoInvoice Interface program

RA_INTERFACE_SALESCREDITS_ALL - Sales Credits information in AutoInvoice Interface

HZ_PARTIES,

HZ_CUST_ACCOUNTS_ALL,

HZ_CUST_ACCT_SITES_ALL,

HZ_CUST_SITE_USES_ALL,

HZ_LOCATIONS,

HZ_PARTY_SITES,

HZ_PARTY_SITE_USES,

HZ_CONTACT_POINTS. few to name.

_TL are tables corresponding to another table with the same name minus the _TL. These tables provide multiple language support. For each item in the table without _TL there can be many rows in the _TL table, but all with different values in the LANGUAGE column.

_B these are the BASE tables. They are very important and the data is stored in the table with all validations. It is supposed that these table will always contain the perfect format data. If anything happens to the BASE table data, then it is a data corruption issue.

_F these are date tracked tables, which occur in HR and Payroll. For these there are two date columns EFFECTIVE_START_DATE and EFFECTIVE_END_DATE which together with the PK identifies a row uniquely. The date intervals cannot overlap. Many think they are Secured data. Guess someone from Oracle confirms.

_V tables are the views created on base tables _VL are views for multi language tables which combines the row of the base table with the corresponding row of the _TL table where the LANGUAGE = USERENV(’LANG’).

_S are sequences, used for finding new values for the primary key of a table.

_A are Audit Shadow Tables

_AVN and _ACN are Audit Shadow Views (when data was changed, and with what values)

2. Sales Tax Location flex field

Optional Key Flex fields:

1. Transaction flex field (requied only if Auto Invoicing is enabled)

2. System Items Flex field (If Inventory or OM is installed this should be defined there. other wise, it should be set up in AR).

While David does not say anything not already know to AR professionals, he presents the information in a very clear and matter-of-fact way. This could be a useful tool for AR teams that need to educated executives, product managers or others in their companies that are resistant to the reality that the industry analyst have an impact on their business.

Click here or on the image to visit the Inovis blog to watch the vlog.