Talking Headless with Shashi Bellamkonda - Playaz Productions Network

Here are a few options for an Apple Podcast-friendly title and short description, depending on whether you are naming the entire show or this specific milestone episode.
Option 1: For the Overall Show Feed
If you are setting up or updating the main podcast page for the entire series:
Title Options

  • Talking Headless with Shashi Bellamkonda 

  • Talking Headless: Tech & Analyst Relations 
Short Description (Under 400 characters for quick reading)
Demystify the tech ecosystem with Shashi Bellamkonda. Go inside the boardroom with global heads of Analyst Relations, top industry analysts, and tech founders to explore how vendors and influencers shape market narratives, leverage AI, and drive enterprise tech trends. Real-world playbooks for B2B tech leaders, buyers, and insiders.
Option 2: For the Specific Milestone Episode
If you are publishing the specific episode featuring Erin Singleton (Adobe) and Melody Brew (Moor Insights & Strategy):
Title Options (Under 60 characters for mobile display)

  • What a Best-in-Class Analyst Relations Program Does 

  • The Evolution of AR: From Backroom to Boardroom 

  • Best-in-Class Analyst Relations (feat. Adobe & Moor Insights) 
Short Description (Perfect for the episode summary snippet)
In this 1-year anniversary special, Shashi Bellamkonda sits down with Erin Singleton (Global Head of AR at Adobe) and Melody Brew (Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy). Discover how modern Analyst Relations has evolved into a strategic intelligence function, why "early and often" briefings are vital in the age of AI, and how to build high-impact, two-way industry relationships.
Show Notes: What a Best-in-Class Analyst Relations Program Actually Does 📱
In this milestone episode of Talking Headless with Shashi Bellamkonda, we celebrate a major landmark: exactly one year since industry icon Paul Greenberg handed over the hosting keys to Shashi. To mark the occasion, this episode dives deep into the modern evolution of Analyst Relations (AR)—exploring how the discipline has successfully transitioned from a corporate backroom task to a critical boardroom strategy.
Episode Overview
How do today's leading enterprise companies build trust, cut through market noise, and collaborate with the analyst community? Shashi is joined by two powerhouse guests to unpack what it takes to build a modern, high-impact AR program. They discuss the shift from transactional vendor rankings to strategic market intelligence, the rising importance of AI governance, and how to successfully manage relationships across a fragmenting influencer landscape.
Meet the Guests

  • Erin Singleton – Global Head of Industry Analyst Relations at Adobe. Erin brings over two decades of experience navigating public relations and strategic AR at one of the world's leading enterprise software giants.

  • Melody Brew – VP & Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. As a former CMO turned principal analyst, Melody offers a unique double-sided perspective on how technology decisions are actually bought, sold, and evaluated.
Key Takeaways & Discussion Points
1. The Shift from PR to Strategic Intelligence

  • Beyond the Rankings: Modern AR is no longer just about chasing placements in Magic Quadrants or Forrester Waves. Erin explains that its true value lies in acting as an internal "influence and intelligence" hub to help executive leadership understand buyer pain points and market directions.

  • Balancing Global and Local Narratives: Managing a global brand requires a consistent core message, but AR teams must remain flexible enough to adapt to local regional dynamics, such as regulatory and compliance shifts in Europe.
2. The Velocity of AI and Shifting Evaluation Criteria

  • The Death of the Bi-Annual Briefing: Melody points out that because technology is moving at breakneck speed, standard quarterly or bi-annual briefings are no longer sufficient to keep analysts accurately updated.

  • New Decision Criteria: Enterprise buyers—and the analysts advising them—are looking far past basic feature checklists. Core evaluation criteria now heavily include AI governance, model explainability, responsible deployment, and concrete ROI.

  • The Fragmented Megaphone: Influence is no longer concentrated solely within the largest research firms. Independent and boutique analysts leverage highly influential platforms on LinkedIn and Substack, requiring AR programs to diversify their outreach.
Actionable Playbooks for AR Success
"Early and Often"Don't wait for a finished product to reach out. Melody stresses that the most productive vendor-analyst collaborations happen when companies loop analysts in early to stress-test roadmaps and walk through future scenarios together.

  • Bring Analysts on the Journey: Treat briefings as an ongoing collaborative narrative rather than a rigid, final presentation. Keep analysts aligned with where your business is going, not just where it is today.

  • Close the Loop on Feedback: If an analyst's insights directly influence a product pivot or strategic shift, tell them! Acknowledging their impact cements a strong, mutually respectful relationship.
Watch the Full Episode

Creators and Guests

Host
Shashi Bellamkonda
Shashi Bellamkonda is an accomplished marketing and technology leader with over 20 years of experience in the technology sector. He serves as an industry analyst at the Info-Tech Research Group. In mid-2025, Shashi took over as the host of "Talking Headless," a premier business technology broadcast on the Playaz Productions Network (PPN). On the show, he leverages his deep expertise to demystify the enterprise tech ecosystem, exploring the evolving dynamics between tech vendors, corporate boardrooms, and Analyst Relations (AR) professionals.
Guest
Erin Singleton
Erin Singleton is the Global Head of Industry Analyst Relations at Adobe , where she has spent over two decades driving strategic communication and vendor relations. Originally cutting her teeth with 10 to 15 years in public relations, she successfully transitioned to the AR landscape, utilizing her deep background in relationship-building to elevate Adobe's market presence.
Guest
Melody Brue
Melody is a marketing, business development, communications, and strategy leader with 25+ years, driving growth, go-to-market, and stakeholder value for venture-backed companies and global brands. She works with executive teams and boards to shape strategic initiatives, pressure-test assumptions, and translate complex market shifts into clear decisions and narratives. In my current role, I advise companies on product, go-to-market, and ecosystem strategies while also educating the market through research, thought leadership, and media commentary. I help teams turn market signals into strategy and align product, go-to-market, and leadership around a clear story and set of priorities for the business.

What is Talking Headless with Shashi Bellamkonda - Playaz Productions Network?

Talking Headless with Shashi Bellamkonda is a premier business technology broadcast featured on the Playaz Productions Network (PPN) YouTube channel.

Originally created and hosted by industry veteran Paul Greenberg, the show entered an exciting new chapter in mid-2025 when marketing and technology leader Shashi Bellamkonda took over as the host.

Show Overview & Key Themes
The Analyst Relations Ecosystem: The show specializes in demystifying the relationship between technology vendors, Analyst Relations (AR) professionals, and industry analysts. It explores how these groups collaborate to shape industry narratives and drive market visibility.

Emerging Tech & AI: Episodes frequently explore cutting-edge topics, such as how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI assistants are transforming the analyst ecosystem and vendor-analyst communications.

Expert Guests: Shashi regularly interviews top-tier industry players, including global heads of AR from major firms (such as Databricks and Wiz), principal research analysts, and tech founders.

Real-World Playbooks: Moving past mere hypothetical discussions, the episodes offer actionable advice, real-world success stories, and deep dives into enterprise technology trends.

Typically streamed live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and other video platforms, the show is highly regarded in the B2B tech community for bridging the gap between industry insiders and technology buyers.

Here is the full, clean transcript of the episode "What a Best-in-Class Analyst Relations Program Actually Does".
Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Shashi Bellamkonda: Hi everyone! For this show, I could not just wait until I clicked the "go live" button because today is actually a very special show for me. Today marks exactly one year since industry icon and analyst Paul Greenberg handed over the keys of the show to me. So today, I think we'll use this milestone for today's theme, which is the evolution of analyst relations—moving from the corporate backroom to the boardroom.
I especially love the engagement that I get, whether you're watching this show live or watching it later. A lot of people reach out, comment, and ask questions to the panelists. In the past 12 months, if you watched the earlier episodes, you'll see some incredible breakdowns. We had people like Shawn Rogers and Kapoor breaking down analyst frameworks. Just recently, in our last show in April, Mary Mcon and Tim Banting challenged companies to strip away the corporate jargon. Today's show will also touch upon some of these key ideas.
I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to Sonia Vargas from Databricks. She was my very first guest along with Vijay Bruce Dailyaly back in May 2025. Shout out to everybody else who has been on this show!
Today, we have two very special guests. I'm really happy that Erin Singleton, who is the Global Head of Industry Analyst Relations at Adobe, will be our first guest. She'll talk about her journey to analyst relations and give us a lot of insights into how she has succeeded. Our second guest is Melody Brue. I’ve met both of them at conferences in real life, which really adds to the excitement for today's show. Melody is the VP and Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, and she is also a former CMO, so it will be a very interesting conversation with her as well.
With that, let me bring in our first guest. Ladies and gentlemen, here is Erin Singleton!
[00:02:42] Erin Singleton: Hi! How are you doing today?
[00:02:49] Shashi Bellamkonda: Good! Thank you for having me. No, it's really been good. I was so happy that I could bring you on the show after having known you for, gosh, maybe a few years, but having heard of you much before. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, and talk a little bit about where you're joining us from?
[00:03:04] Erin Singleton: Yeah! So, I'm Erin Singleton. I head up the analyst relations team for Adobe. I've been working for Adobe for about 22 years. If you had asked me when I was interviewing for the company years ago if I was going to still be here this many years later, I would have been very surprised! I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
[00:03:30] Shashi Bellamkonda: Very nice! I'm sure it's nice and sunny there, unlike the DC area. And I always forget to introduce myself! I'm Shashi Bellamkonda. My day job is as an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group. I've been in technology for over 20 years and live in the Washington, DC area.
I want to kick off this conversation, Erin. With your two decades of leading and elevating analyst relations plus your current role directing global AR at an enterprise company like Adobe, share a bit more about your journey. What made you choose this profession? What are some milestones, early experiences, and how do you manage such a large scale at Adobe today?
[00:04:24] Erin Singleton: Yeah, so like a lot of analyst relations professionals, I actually started in public relations. That's where I got my start, and I easily made the transition to AR after about 10 or 15 years of doing PR.
There are a lot of similarities which folks watching can relate to—it's a lot of relationship-building. But I just found AR to be so much more satisfying from a career standpoint. The relationships you can build with analysts are deeper, and there is a strategic nature to it that really drew me in.
I've been with Adobe quite a long time, as I said. I took over managing the team about five years ago when my former manager retired. Adobe is one of those companies that is constantly evolving, so it has never felt stale. It never feels like the same job because the technologies and the categories we are in continue to evolve, and it has just been really exciting.
[00:05:51] Shashi Bellamkonda: Very nice! I would call you an "OG" because not many people can say they've been at a company for so long, plus in this space. I also believe good communicators can thrive and survive because of the ability to take a message, as I like to say, "from geek to English." Not everybody needs highly dense, technical language.
With that, let me ask you a question about the high volume of market noise out there. Every software company is trying to push out new narratives. How do you think about that from an AR perspective? What should a company be doing to ensure that their narrative captures and holds the attention of analysts?
[00:06:48] Erin Singleton: I mean, a lot of this is the brass tacks that we all grew up doing in AR. It's about building those relationships and making sure that you are front and center with the analysts you should care about. And when I say that, I mean: who are the analysts that are influencing the deals? Who are the analysts that are influencing buyer decisions? You want to make sure you're top-of-mind for them.
With AI, things are evolving pretty quickly, as everyone knows. So, I'm finding that there's an increasing need to partner closely with our marketing teams around how we are showing up. What is our visibility within these new LLM search engines? What analyst reports and analyst content are showing up there and giving us a voice?
[00:07:55] Shashi Bellamkonda: That's true. Adobe is obviously a massive global company. I remember supporting ColdFusion back in the day! It's an interesting story—everybody should be a lifelong learner. What has helped me in my career is sometimes going back to college. I went to a local community college to learn ColdFusion, and that helped me move along in my career to Info-Tech.
Since you manage AR at a global scale, what are some cultural aspects and regional nuances that people should think about when managing AR across various countries and international markets?
[00:08:44] Erin Singleton: Yeah, when it comes to global, it’s basically about balancing consistency with flexibility. You absolutely need a clear, consistent core narrative, but how that shows up in different regions often needs to flex a bit based on local market dynamics, buyer expectations, and even how analysts engage in those regions.
Listening also becomes even more important globally—you can't assume the same approach works everywhere. It all has to be grounded in a clear, central strategy, but with local awareness to make it relevant. For example, in Europe right now, regulation is very top of mind. So, we make sure we are supporting our regional teams with analyst messaging that addresses those specific regulatory concerns.
[00:09:51] Shashi Bellamkonda: That's true. In previous conversations, what we've heard from AR professionals outside of the US is that the perception of analysts in Asia, for instance, is that they may act more like consultants or confessionals, asking "What should we be doing?" It applies to the rest of the world too, but you really do have to look at those local nuances.
[00:10:39] Erin Singleton: Absolutely, Shashi. The other thing too is that analysts themselves have become highly global in nature over the last decade. It doesn't really matter where they are physically located—they could be in Europe or APJ—but they often have a global remit.
[00:11:07] Shashi Bellamkonda: On that note, what is an evolution of analyst relations that you've seen in the past few years? Even if we don't go back too far. I'll give you an example: as a former CMO of startups, I didn't initially understand analyst relations and didn't allocate budget to it. Retrospectively, I think that was a big mistake. Analyst content gets rated very highly simply because it is neutral, well-thought-out, and deeper. What shifts have you seen that you’d like to share?
[00:11:53] Erin Singleton: I think while AR is still fundamentally about managing relationships, it is increasingly evolving into an influence and intelligence function. It's not just about managing external relationships; it’s about bringing insights back into the company to help leadership make better strategic decisions.
At the same time, the ecosystem is getting more complex. Traditional analyst firms still matter immensely, especially for enterprise buyers making big decisions, but there is a much broader set of voices influencing perception now. AR has to be much more focused on how it prioritizes and engages across that landscape.
And AI is a massive piece of this. AI is changing everybody's job. At Adobe, we are encouraged to embrace AI from the bottom up—everyone is experimenting with and leveraging AI. So, we have to look at how we are using AI internally, what AI tools we are offering as a vendor, and how analyst firms themselves are using AI. It is pushing AR to evolve rapidly.
[00:13:43] Shashi Bellamkonda: I'm honestly surprised at how much time AI saves for research compared to manually digging through piles of papers. It's incredibly true.
If someone wanted to join this profession today, what advice would you have for them? Why should they join, and what is great about this career? Also, what would you say to companies that don't currently have an AR function?
[00:14:24] Erin Singleton: For people earlier in their careers, I’d say AR is a fantastic place to learn how a business actually works because it sits right at the intersection of product, marketing, strategy, and sales. It’s not just about managing analyst relationships; it's about understanding the market and how your company fits into it. The more you can connect analyst insights to actual decisions inside the business, the more valuable your role becomes. Building fundamentals like clear communication, synthesis of insights, and relationship-building goes a very long way.
To the second part of your question—for companies that don't have an AR function: a lot of executives only associate AR with, "Oh, there's a Magic Quadrant or a Forrester Wave, how do we get into that?" While that can be a foot in the door, credibility with executives starts when you can tie AR directly to business outcomes. Show how AR helps shape market perception, improves positioning, and ultimately supports pipeline and deal cycles.
Sometimes it’s an uphill battle to prove, but you can start small. If LLM search visibility is important to your executives, you can show them how analyst research and user reviews directly populate those search results, making the company visible. That helps prove why AR is a necessary function.
[00:17:20] Shashi Bellamkonda: That is a great insight. Erin, a question I keep getting from AR professionals is that they find it difficult to secure deep executive buy-in to engage with analysts. What do you recommend to overcome those challenges?
[00:18:01] Erin Singleton: That can be a challenge at any company—getting executives to carve out time to spend with analysts. If you have an active contract with a firm like Gartner or Forrester, I recommend working with your account teams to set up high-level, proof-of-concept advisory conversations.
One thing I've been pushing my team on is moving beyond just the vendor-evaluation level of analysts. Who are the analysts a level above that—the ones looking at go-to-market strategies or overarching buyer behavior? Those are the macro-level insights executives are actually interested in.
Analysts talk to your customers constantly. A company might have its own customer listening program, but those are usually happy customers. Unhappy customers often call analysts to ask for advice. If you can gather aggregated insights from analysts about your customers' actual pain points, executives will absolutely lean in and pay attention.
[00:20:02] Shashi Bellamkonda: That is so true. We talked briefly before the show about "no-agenda calls." Many of our previous guests have talked about building relationships with analysts by having informal chats just to get to know them. I've personally benefited from this—during my road trip across the country, many AR professionals and analysts gave me great travel tips! There is a deeply personal aspect to this. What is your advice on building those relationships? Should AR professionals constantly be hunting for new firms?
[00:22:08] Erin Singleton: Getting to know analysts on a personal level is so important. They have families, lives, and hobbies. The analyst and AR community is incredibly tight-knit—we all peer-network, share best practices, and support one another. I've gotten to know analysts so well over the years that we exchange Christmas cards and go to holiday parties. It’s a wonderful community.
Regarding the ever-expanding set of analyst firms, you do have to prioritize. I've been pushing my team to say "no" sometimes. We have a decent-sized team, but we can't participate in every vendor evaluation or engage with every firm that crosses our path. You have to prioritize the core growth areas of your business. Adobe is a large enterprise highly focused on customer experience and the CMO buyer, so we choose not to spend time with firms that don't influence that specific space. It’s about bandwidth and prioritization.
[00:23:40] Shashi Bellamkonda: Bandwidth and prioritization are key. What are some of the most successful ways you've found to build these strong analyst relationships?
[00:23:58] Erin Singleton: Again, it's about knowing the analysts—not just personally, but knowing what they write about and what their hot buttons are. If you can spend time with them via paid advisory sessions, I highly recommend it. It's an amazing way to dig deeper.
One of the first things you learn in AR 101 is that only about 30% of what an analyst knows is actually in their published, written research. How do you get at the other 70%? You get it by spending time with them and digging into their brain.
[00:24:54] Shashi Bellamkonda: Excellent insights. I know we have viewers commenting, though sometimes our streaming platform doesn't surface them until the end. We will bring Erin back in a little bit, but for now, thank you so much, Erin!
[00:25:20] Shashi Bellamkonda: That was extremely interesting, getting Erin's perspective on succeeding in enterprise AR. Now, I want to bring another very special guest onto this anniversary episode: Melody Brue! We have crossed paths many times, and she is a wonderful person to know. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Melody Brue!
[00:25:50] Melody Brue: Hi! So good to see you. How are you doing?
[00:25:56] Shashi Bellamkonda: Great! It's so good to see you.
[00:25:58] Melody Brue: Great to see you too, and thanks for having me! I loved listening to Erin—she is one of my favorites. I'm excited to be here.
[00:26:06] Shashi Bellamkonda: I'm so happy to have you both. It's a special milestone for me to hit one year on this show. Melody, you have a very interesting background as a CMO turned analyst. Introduce yourself, give the community a feel for who you are, and share your journey to becoming an analyst.
[00:26:34] Melody Brue: Sure! I'm Melody Brue with Moor Insights & Strategy. I've been with the firm for a little over five years now. I cover a broad range of enterprise applications, including UCaaS, CCaaS, some of Adobe's space, the MarTech stack, and HCM.
As you mentioned, I'm a former CMO. That is actually highly consistent across the Moor Insights & Strategy team—almost all of our analysts have held real-world roles leading product, marketing, or business management. None of us are what you would call "lifer analysts". There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a lifer analyst, but our background gives us a highly unique view of the companies we cover.
More importantly, we deeply understand the decisions executives are making because we've had to make those exact purchasing decisions ourselves. We understand the buying process, the stakes involved, and what it’s like to live with those decisions. Bringing that real-world lens into market intelligence is a bit unique for us as a firm, but it has completely shaped how I approach my analyst work. I know what an executive needs to convince the person holding the checkbook.
[00:28:55] Shashi Bellamkonda: That's a powerful perspective. Give our audience an indication of how you have seen analyst relations evolve over the past few years.
[00:29:15] Melody Brue: There are a couple of big shifts I've noticed. First, AI is making everything move incredibly fast. Standard quarterly or bi-annual briefings simply don't work anymore because things change in the span of weeks. For analysts, we have to keep up at high velocity. For AR teams, it means maintaining a faster cadence of briefings. It requires more than just blasting out press releases. I've always said "early and often" is the best way to engage with analysts, and that is truer now than ever.
Second, AI governance and responsible AI deployment have become core evaluation criteria. We are no longer just looking at product features. Enterprise buyers—and the analysts advising them—are asking tough questions about model governance, bias, explainability, accountability, and actual ROI.
Lastly, the rise of independent and boutique analysts has fragmented traditional influence. It's no longer just about the giant analyst firms. Smaller firms and independent voices publishing on LinkedIn or Substack hold massive megaphones. For AR, this means building broader, relationship-centric programs that span the entire influencer landscape, not just responding to inquiries from the big players.
[00:31:57] Shashi Bellamkonda: Incredible insights. I try to persuade companies to do at least quarterly briefings, but you're absolutely right—in this climate, quarterly isn't frequent enough.
From an analyst's viewpoint, what are some concrete actions a company can take to establish a highly productive relationship with you?
[00:33:00] Melody Brue: It has to be a two-way conversation. A common mistake some AR teams make is that they feed us information but never ask for feedback. The feedback loop is incredibly important. Great AR is about routing analyst input back to the product and strategy teams.
Also, manage the flow of information around events. AR teams often struggle with this: they give us the exact same slide deck in a pre-briefing, during the keynote, and in the executive Q&A. Great teams find a way to give us enough info beforehand so we can prepare or pre-write, but then deliver fresh, unique experiences and deeper access during the actual event. Keeping that relationship active between formal touchpoints is crucial.
[00:34:50] Shashi Bellamkonda: What about technology? Beyond just AI, has technology improved the flow of information between AR and analysts?
[00:35:04] Melody Brue: I've seen it go a couple of ways. Platforms like ARinsights offer great portals where analysts can search and find materials without digging through old emails. Having all vendor materials consolidated in one place is fantastic.
We are also using AI summaries. When AR teams send over long slide decks and recordings, we can use AI tools to quickly query the transcript, locate the specific data points we need, and filter out the noise.
I also love when AR teams send over brief, concise text summaries instead of formal press releases full of marketing fluff. A great brief tells me: What do I need to know? Why is this important? How do I learn more? Who do I contact for customer references?
Even simple logistics matter. If I go to a three-day event and an AR team just sends a PDF of my schedule, that creates a ton of manual calendar work for me. But if they send direct calendar invites for every single 1-on-1, keynote, and meeting, it makes the experience seamless. The AR teams that leverage these workflows to respect our time stand out immensely.
[00:38:30] Shashi Bellamkonda: It seems like a small detail, but direct calendar invites are a massive help.
For people who want to become technology analysts—whether they are changing careers or starting fresh—what is your advice on entering this field?
[00:39:31] Melody Brue: If you have deep experience in a specific domain and you are agile enough to keep up with the fast pace, I highly recommend picking a clear market category to start. Genuinely understand the buyer, the vendor landscape, the technology architecture, and the business economics. That depth is what makes you credible and valuable to both vendors and buyers.
That doesn't mean you have to stay in one lane forever. I started in fintech and quickly broadened into collaboration platforms during the pandemic because I noticed parallel trends. Both sectors had to scale up rapidly and then horizontally build out their roadmaps. You will find natural synergies where your learnings easily transfer.
Now, categories are bleeding into one another. It used to be that a firm had one dedicated "AI analyst," but that's impossible today. Now, every single analyst across every swim lane has to deeply understand AI. The same is happening with security and compliance. So start deep, but be prepared to broaden out quickly.
CMOs make highly natural analysts because they are already embedded in data, messaging, buyer personas, and business outcomes across the entire enterprise.
[00:43:57] Shashi Bellamkonda: Those are phenomenal points. Hold that thought on categories—I’d like to bring Erin back so we can have a roundtable discussion among friends!
Welcome back, Erin! By the way, Melody and I did not coordinate our outfits today, but we are perfectly color-coordinated!
[00:44:14] Erin Singleton: I know, it's so funny! We match perfectly. We should have told you, Shashi!
[00:44:21] Shashi Bellamkonda: I should have worn blue too!
Melody brought up a critical point: traditional categories are blurring. Companies can't stick to just one category because security vendors are doing observability, and marketing platforms are doing deep data architecture. How should AR and analyst communities navigate this increasingly "category-less" or blurred landscape? Erin, you go first, and then Melody.
[00:45:29] Erin Singleton: I definitely see both sides of this. While we still participate in category-specific evaluations every year, the definitions of those categories are broadening immensely. Every analyst we talk to is interested in our core category, but they also want to know: How does AI impact this? How does security and governance impact this? It can't just be a siloed category story anymore; you have to weave in a much broader narrative that touches adjacent spaces.
[00:46:19] Shashi Bellamkonda: Melody, what are your thoughts? Buyers also get incredibly confused when different vendors in their stack introduce overlapping features to reduce tech debt.
[00:46:51] Melody Brue: I would push back slightly on the term "category-less". I don't think categories are gone, but their definitions have broadened. An analyst covering contact centers still focuses on contact centers, but they now must possess deep knowledge of conversational AI, security, and customer experience as well.
The lines are definitely blurring. To succeed, you have to nail your core competency but understand the broader ecosystem surrounding you so you can paint the full picture for buyers. You can't just know your little corner of the room; you have to know what is happening in the entire building.
[00:48:18] Shashi Bellamkonda: I love that analogy—knowing what’s happening in the entire building.
In our remaining time, let's look at best practices from both sides. Melody, what can a company do to build a highly productive relationship with you?
[00:48:50] Melody Brue: I'll say it again: "early and often." Come to me before a launch. Let's look at roadmaps and go through potential scenarios together before things are finalized. That collaborative, proactive engagement is how you get the absolute most value out of an analyst.
[00:49:34] Shashi Bellamkonda: Erin, what can analysts do better to improve their relationship and engagement with AR teams?
[00:49:47] Erin Singleton: I completely agree with Melody about bringing analysts along on the journey. Engaging them at the earliest stages and having an active two-way dialogue makes a massive difference.
For analysts, I want to acknowledge that your jobs are harder than ever. The sheer volume of events, briefings, and vendor requests you deal with is overwhelming. I don't know how you do it!
Because there is so much noise, repetition from vendors actually helps. It helps when we connect the dots: Here is where we said we were going, here is where we are today, and here is the momentum we've achieved. Repeating that core narrative helps busy analysts stay connected to our story.
[00:51:48] Melody Brue: I love that. And back up that repetition with proof—share customer success stories, show the actual ROI, and show where you had to pivot. It is incredibly powerful when an AR team circles back and says, "Hey, your feedback was instrumental in helping us make this product pivot, and here are the results." Too many AR teams fail to close that feedback loop.
[00:52:58] Erin Singleton: I agree. Showing how executive teams actively listen and respond to feedback—both from customers and analysts—builds immense credibility.
[00:54:03] Shashi Bellamkonda: These are fantastic takeaways: early and often, strategic repetition, and closing the feedback loop.
I have one final personal question for both of you. When an analyst publishes an article or a brief, what is the best way to let the AR team know? Do you prefer a direct message, or do you rely on automated alerts?
[00:54:41] Erin Singleton: Shashi, you are actually amazing at directly sharing your published research with us, and it is incredibly helpful! We do have internal tracking tools, but we occasionally miss things. Direct shares are always appreciated.
[00:55:06] Melody Brue: I have a similar question for Erin. If I publish a major report, I'll share it. But if it's a quick social post or a mention in our weekly newsletter, I usually don't send it or tag the AR team unless they are in a photo with me. Does tagging AR folks on LinkedIn help?
[00:56:11] Erin Singleton: Yes, tagging the AR team on LinkedIn is highly helpful! It ensures we see it immediately, engage with it, and can quickly package it to share internally with our executive teams.
[00:56:35] Shashi Bellamkonda: Perfect. This has been a truly wonderful conversation, as always. It was a pleasure having you both on our anniversary episode! Thank you so much for your time, and I know our audience is going to get immense value from this. Have a wonderful day, everyone!
[00:57:06] [PPN Outro Credits] This has been a Playaz Productions Network digital broadcast.