What do stairways have to do with industry analysis?
The Stairway Method of Industry Analysis I have an oddball method for assessing the health and future of a company – the stairway method. I’m constantly asked to assess not only the overall Business Intelligence/Data Warehouse market, but also specific companies. This means that I have to invest a lot of time doing due diligence to provide as educated a guess (and foretelling the future is always a guess) as possible. Like anyone following an industry, for the most part I turn to the usual methods. My experience with a company and its products, along with talking with my peers, industry analysts and various vendors’ customers yields a lot of great anecdotal evidence. I also read and discuss evaluations by industry analysts and experts. Industry analysts’ “positioning” charts that compare vendors in an unbiased (although vendors don’t always think so) fashion help me with high-level assessments. In addition, my due diligence includes checking out company and market financials such as st
