Research Websites - Are they fake?

Well.....I am back after a long long vacation and it's time now to let my thoughts again start flowing in this blog.

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During the last 2 months I have been involved in one or other way to learn about the research websites and I should say that it was quite a learning experience. Some of them publish quite good information on the industry trends, current challenges and the solutions offered by different companies in different areas. I personally liked Forrester and AMRResearch for the industry specific published content and Aberdeen for the surveys in diversified areas. They really provide good information and guide us to design our future strategies be it a sales strategy or product development strategy or strategy to address key challenges.

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Though, most of the data I found in the research websites as authentic and impressive but there are a few areas where I could smell the papers published by these websites as influenced by one or other companies. Sometimes the papers are skewed in favor of one product even if that product has some basic limitations and this compels me to think that are some or most of their work sponsored? Do they really represent thoughts of the industry thought leaders or they are being used for promoting products by companies? Initially I was of the opinion that these might be stray cases where either the websites did not get proper information and they published based on best of their knowledge or I do not have that much detailed information about that area so I might be wrong ( though I am talking of the areas where I think I am pretty good placed in, as for as information is concerned) but this thought of mine could not live for long as I discussed this with some other colleagues and friends and found that most of them have thought of this after reading at least one article or paper from the research websites.

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Question will remain unanswered for now but yes, I am sure if not all then at least 75-80% of the content in these websites is genuine and can be believed to make decisions on future strategies of our organizations. But let us remember the fact that these are just enablers for our decisions and we all need to apply our thought process on the top of it to design a winning strategy.