Kea Insight / Analyst Relations

How Do Analysts Actually Build Their Research?

By Sneha Kapoor

Analyst research can look like a finished report appearing from nowhere. It does not.

Behind the published document is usually a much larger research process: conversations with buyers, vendors and other market participants; review of product and company information; market data; surveys; inquiry patterns; demonstrations; prior research; and the analyst’s own interpretation of what all of that means.

The exact mix varies by firm, analyst and research type. Understanding that process matters because it changes how a vendor should engage. A briefing is one input into the analyst’s work, not the work itself.

Research starts with a question

Most research begins because the analyst is trying to understand something: how a market is changing, which capabilities matter to buyers, how vendors differ, what a new technology changes, or which decisions clients are struggling to make.

That question determines the evidence the analyst needs. A market forecast requires different inputs from a vendor evaluation. A category note requires different work from a product comparison. An inquiry-driven piece may emerge from repeated client questions that reveal a pattern worth investigating.

This is why “getting into research” is not a useful objective by itself. The first AR question should be which research questions the company can help the analyst answer.

Analysts use several evidence streams

There is no single universal research recipe, but several input types recur across the industry.

Buyer and user conversations. These show what organisations are trying to achieve, what they are buying and where implementations succeed or fail.
Vendor briefings and demonstrations. These provide current information on strategy, products, customers, roadmap and market perspective.
Inquiry and advisory conversations. Repeated client questions can reveal emerging problems, terminology and buying criteria.
Surveys and quantitative data. These can add scale to patterns observed in individual conversations.
Published company information. Product documentation, financial disclosures, customer evidence and public announcements all contribute context.
Competitive and market evidence. Analysts compare approaches across vendors rather than evaluating each company in isolation.
Existing research. New work usually builds on an analyst’s prior view of the market rather than starting from zero.

The balance changes with the assignment. A market-sizing analyst may weight quantitative data heavily. A product-focused analyst may spend more time with users and technical evidence. A vertical analyst may care most about business outcomes and industry context.

Buyer conversations matter more than vendors often realise

Vendors naturally focus on the interactions they can see: their own briefings and inquiries. That creates a distorted view of the analyst’s information environment.

Analysts also hear from buyers who are comparing vendors, struggling with implementations, building requirements or asking why one approach is different from another. Those conversations give analysts evidence that a vendor cannot control and often does not see.

This is one reason customer proof matters. When a vendor says a capability is important, the analyst can test that claim against what buyers actually ask about. When the vendor says implementation is simple, buyer experience provides a separate evidence stream.

The strongest AR programmes recognise this and bring real customer context into the conversation rather than relying on product claims alone.

Where vendor briefings fit

A good vendor briefing helps the analyst keep their market model current. It can explain a new category, correct outdated assumptions, provide evidence of traction, show how customers use the product and clarify where the company believes the market is moving.

But a briefing is not a controlled publishing opportunity. The analyst is comparing what the vendor says with other evidence, including competitors and customers.

That changes how a company should prepare. The useful goal is not to “get the message into the report” word for word. It is to make the company’s evidence clear enough that the analyst can test and use it.

Provide facts that are easy to verify. Explain the market logic behind the strategy. Be precise about customer outcomes. Acknowledge where the product does not fit. Analysts can work with a nuanced position far more easily than with universal claims.

Evidence still requires judgement

Research is not simply a database query that produces an inevitable conclusion. Analysts choose which evidence matters, how different inputs should be weighted and what the pattern means for their clients.

Two analysts can look at the same market and emphasise different risks because their clients, research questions or analytical frameworks differ. That does not automatically make one wrong.

This is also why a vendor cannot manage analyst perception purely through information volume. Sending more material does not guarantee the analyst will value it more. Relevance, credibility and consistency matter.

Where the company disagrees with a conclusion, the useful response is to identify the evidence or assumption behind the disagreement and test it. “The analyst does not understand us” is not analysis.

What this means for your AR programme

Once you understand research as a process, several AR behaviours change.

First, track the analyst’s research agenda and recurring client questions, not just publication dates. Those tell you what evidence will become useful next.

Second, brief when you have something that improves the analyst’s understanding. A launch can be a reason, but so can new customer evidence, a category shift or a material change in buyer behaviour.

Third, use inquiry separately from briefing. A briefing helps the analyst understand you. An inquiry helps you understand the analyst’s view and the evidence behind it.

Finally, treat published research as the visible output of a much larger information network. Your company is one participant in that network. The objective of AR is to become a credible, useful participant whose evidence deserves to be included when the analyst forms a view.

That is much more durable than trying to engineer a mention in a single report.

Put this into practice

Make your company useful to the research process.

Kea can help you map the analysts, research questions and evidence streams that matter so your briefings contribute to how the market is understood.

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