Forrester's CMO Offers An Inside Look At Its $245M SiriusDecisions Acquisition

This week’s SiriusDecisions acquisition for $245 million by fellow research and adivsory firm Forrester will mean many more line-of-business executives learn about “the Sirius Way,” according to its CMO.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester announced its SiriusDecisions acquisition on Tuesday, citing opportunities to expand further into vertical markets such as finance and utilities, as well as geographies such as the EMEA and APAC. Once the deal has finalized in January, Forrester said its addressable market in strategy of $20 billion approximately doubles to $40 billion with the addition of operations.

While Forrester is best known for its work in advising and surveying those in IT roles such as chief information officers, SiriusDecisions has traditionally had a more specialized focus. Its programs and methodologies have been oriented around helping sales and marketing teams work more collaboratively, for example, and has put a particular emphasis on the B2B space.

According to Victor Milligan, Forrester’s CMO, the SiriusDecisions acquisition doesn’t mean customers could expect the latter firm’s name to slowly fade away, as is common in many similar M&As.

“SiriusDecisions is a great brand,” Milligan told B2B News Network. “Not only do we plan to maintain SiriusDecisions’ products and brand equity, but also ‘The Sirius Way’ as an operational force for CMOs, CIOs, product and business leaders.”

Forrester already offers a number of research programs serving B2B marketers, creating potential overlap among its teams of analysts. Milligan, however, said SiriusDecisions will allow Forrester to have a deeper operational understanding of the issues in that area, which he said will ultimately allows strategic advice to be more effectively tuned.

Milligan said Forrester also sees the SiriusDecisions acquisition to provide greater value to its existing client base of IT and customer experience decision-makers, even though they may have a much different focus than those in sales and marketing.

“Our focus on CIOs remains strong; and we see a significantly larger and more strategic role for the CIO moving forward,” he said. “This acquisition will bring operational frameworks to that audience.”

Marketers and sales professionals, meanwhile, are increasingly more involved in using technologies to achieve success, whether it is CRM or various martech products and services. Even if they haven’t been Forrester clients in the past, they can still benefit through the SiriusDecisions acquisition, Milligan said.

“Marketers have a dual mandate of change and growth, and they’re being forced to revolutionize the way work is done,” Milligan said. “SiriusDecisions enables marketers to maximize performance every day. Preparing for the new entity is more about how CMOs and leadership teams understand, embrace and execute on that change.”

Besides its research and other content, SiriusDecisions hosts a series of conferences, dubbed the SiriusDecisions Summit. Milligan described the events as “a major platform for extending the brand, and we expect to fully support these great events moving forward.”