Time to Value: The Gartner Marketing and Product Management Podcast

Time to Value podcast host Craig Lowery and guest René Büst explore how product leaders can leverage sovereign cloud solutions to navigate geopolitical uncertainties. The discussion delves into the complexities of digital sovereignty, emphasizing the importance of control over software and hardware infrastructure, and the challenges posed by geopolitical tensions. The podcast highlights the growing need for organizations to reassess their dependencies on U.S. cloud providers and explore regional alternatives to ensure data sovereignty and operational autonomy. Additionally, the episode offers practical advice for product and services leaders on risk management and enhancing technological sovereignty through diverse partnerships and open-source technologies.

René Büst is a senior director and analyst at Gartner, specializing in the cloud services market within the technology and services provider organization. With more than 20 years of experience, René’s expertise spans cloud IT services, digital sovereignty, and digital business operations. His advisory services guide technology leaders in refining their portfolio and marketing strategies to achieve optimal market positioning. Before Gartner, René was the director of technology research at Arago, focusing on intelligent automation. He also led cloud computing research at Crisp Research. René holds a master's degree in IT management and information systems and a diploma in computer engineering.

The 2025 Gartner Tech Marketing Benchmarks Survey showed web (direct/referral traffic) is the top-performing marketing channel for companies with $100 million or more in annual revenue. In fact, web-based direct or referral-based traffic moved up four ranks and overtook search engine optimization’s (SEO’s) No. 1 slot from 2024.

In this episode, we explore homepage strategies to increase the channel’s impact on revenue and growth. We also discuss how AI is impacting buyer expectations and some of the ways tech providers can use AI tools to enhance their homepages.

Jess Walker is senior principal analyst specializing in positioning and messaging best practices for B2B tech homepages. Her recent research focuses on how emerging tools (e.g., AI digital humans) and go-to-market (GTM) strategies (e.g., interactive demos) are reshaping best-in-class homepages.

Sarah Brennan is a senior principal analyst who advises B2B tech marketing clients on how to deliver higher pipeline and growth from their web and social channels investments.

Time to Value: The Gartner Marketing and Product Management Podcast host Cliff Gilley and guest analyst Chris Meering discuss the results of the 2024 Gartner Product Management Branded Survey. They explore the various titles and roles of product management, the impact of generative AI (GenAI) on the profession and how product managers can better balance internal, delivery-focused work with external customer discovery and validation.

About the Guest

Chris Meering is a vice president analyst at Gartner's Tech Product Manager team within the Technology and Service Providers research unit. Mr. Meering's research deals with product management across various technology domains, with a special focus on best practices in product planning, life cycle management and product leadership, development and introduction/launch. He is an experienced telecommunications/information technology professional with over 30 years of operational, consulting and business/product management experience.

The 2025 Tech Growth and Innovation Conference is scheduled to take place on 10-11 March 2025 at the Gaylord Texan Hotel & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. This episode of the Time to Value Podcast gives a preview of the themes, keynotes and conference tracks, as well as helpful tips to get the most out of the event.

Host Todd Berkowitz is the practice vice president for the Tech Marketing practice. Mr. Berkowitz manages a team of analysts that advise B2B technology marketing leaders across a wide range of topics, including marketing org design/leadership, budgets and metrics, demand generation and ABM, product marketing, marketing ops, sales enablement, and customer experience. Previously, Todd initiated and built Gartner's coverage around ABM and ABM platforms.

About The Guests

Guest Adrian Lee has more than 22 years of technology marketing experience spanning mobile apps, smartphones, SaaS and ecommerce providers. Prior to joining Gartner, Adrian was vice president and head of brand partnerships at Lazada Group, an Alibaba Group-owned e-commerce marketplace in Southeast Asia. He started his international career with global and regional marketing and business operations roles in Nokia and Samsung Electronics. He exerts a pragmatic approach to product management and marketing, with a focus on startup and SME technology vendors. He has personally led new market entry and expansion projects, fulfilling a blend of product marketing, general management, content management and evangelist roles. His role-based research dials into product management and marketing leaders to deploy best-in-class customer experience and product launches that achieve profitable revenue growth. He also supports product teams on how to navigate disruptive innovation and natural language technologies.

Guest Katie Gove is a vice president analyst in Gartner's Technology and Service Provider research group, where she is on the General Managers team. Ms. Gove covers the IT and business services market. She advises service providers on growth and market opportunities, and go-to-market and differentiation strategies. Her coverage includes digital business services, technology consulting services, business consulting services, digital product engineering services, the use of assets and IP in IT services, the talent crunch, country options for talent and location decision-making, including nearshoring/offshoring and service buyer behavior.

Time to Value: The Gartner Marketing and Product Management Podcast host Craig Lowery and guest analyst Fernando Pereiro dive into the complexities of partnering with hyperscalers like Alibaba, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. They explore the challenges of standing out in a crowded ecosystem and managing expectations for long-term success. They also share insights on ensuring a return on investment, addressing concerns, and highlighting the importance of aligning with the provider’s strategic goals.

Listen to learn how product managers can partner with hyperscalers for growth.

About the Guest

Fernando Pereiro is a senior director analyst in Gartner’s Technology and Services Provider (T&SP) organization, specializing in cloud and cloud IT services. He leads Gartner’s research into hyperscalers’ partner ecosystems. His strong background in business development and cloud go-to-market strategies helps him to deeply understand market trends, needs and which opportunities technology and service providers can address.

Third-party events, such as tradeshows and hosted events, have been a mainstay for tech marketing leaders to drive awareness, generate leads and retain, upsell and cross-sell accounts. But tech companies have doubled their tradeshow spend since 2019, and this trend impacts the ability of demand gen leaders to properly fund and leverage other channels. This podcast episode tackles this issue by providing guidance for 2025 and 2026 in terms of prioritizing event choices and driving the highest ROI from the remaining events.

Host Todd Berkowitz is the practice vice president for Gartner’s technology marketing practice. Todd manages a team of analysts that advise B2B technology marketing leaders across a wide range of topics, including marketing org design/leadership, budgets and metrics, demand generation and account-based marketing (ABM), product marketing, marketing ops, sales enablement and customer experience. Previously, Todd initiated and built Gartner’s coverage around ABM and ABM platforms.

Christy Uher Ferguson is a vice president, distinguished analyst on the Technology and Service Provider Tech Marketing team at Gartner, where she advises tech marketing leaders on managing and improving team performance.

Amy Jenkins is a senior director, analyst on the Technology and Service Provider Tech Marketing team at Gartner, where she advises clients on improving their demand generation and marketing operations efforts. Her areas of focus include martech, segmentation, lead management, campaign management and budgets.

The role of the chief product officer (CPO) continues to grow in prominence and evolve. This episode of Time to Value discusses the growing acceptance and maturation of the role, focusing on the challenges that CPOs are facing and what they need to prepare for in 2025.

Brian Doherty is a vice president analyst with Gartner’s Tech Product Manager team within the Technology and Service Providers research unit. Brian’s research deals with product management across various technology domains, with a special focus on communications and collaboration markets. Such markets include communications platform as a service (CPaaS), video platform as a service (VPaaS), contact center as a service (CCaaS), digital customer service, meeting solutions, meeting room systems and UCaaS, agile principles and practices, and building physical devices.

Charles Sutherland is a vice president analyst with Gartner’s Tech Product Manager Team within the Technology and Service Providers research unit. His research focuses on the role of the chief product officer (CPO) and product leaders within technology and service providers. He also looks at topics such as building product strategy and roadmaps, defining product solutions, aligning and reconciling portfolios, and leveraging partnerships and ecosystems.

This episode of Time to Value explores where tech and service providers struggle to align GTM teams. It also offers advice on how best to improve cross-functional GTM collaboration and performance measurement.

Rahim Kaba is a senior director analyst and key initiative leader for Gartner. He advises product marketing and tech leadership teams on critical aspects of their go-to-market strategies to help them grow, outperform their peers and create value for their customers. His core areas of focus include segmentation, positioning, differentiation, competitive intelligence, buyer personas, messaging, sales enablement, win-loss analysis and product launch best practices. He also helps clients with building and growing high-performance product marketing teams.

Ray Pun is a senior director analyst in Gartner’s technology marketing practice that serves emerging, midsize, and enterprise-level technology and service providers. He provides research and advisory services to help clients improve their go-to-market effectiveness with a focus on account-based marketing, marketing metrics and B2B marketing technologies. As a key initiative leader, he is responsible for orchestrating a vibrant research agenda for topics related to partner and developer ecosystems, product-led growth and marketing performance.

Time to Value: The Gartner Marketing and Product Management Podcast host Craig Lowery and guest analyst Ed Anderson discuss why sustainability is now a critical factor in product management. They explore how sustainability influences customer purchasing decisions and enhances corporate reputations, emphasizing the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects into products. 

Listen to learn why product managers cannot afford to overlook sustainability, and how it can be a significant business value driver.

Ed Anderson is a research vice president and distinguished analyst within Gartner’s technology and service provider organization. He leads Gartner’s research into sustainability best practices for vendors and the product and service offerings delivered by providers. This research defines best practices for operating in a sustainable fashion across environmental, social and governance activities.

He created Gartner’s Vendor Sustainability Assessment, a methodology to assess the sustainability posture of providers, highlighting areas of strength and weakness.

This episode looks at the continued evolution of ABM, highlights key ABM data points from Gartner’s 2024 Tech Marketing Benchmarks and includes a discussion about key drivers of best-in-class ABM programs.

Host Todd Berkowitz is the practice vice president for Gartner’s technology marketing practice. Todd manages a team of analysts that advise B2B technology marketing leaders across a wide range of topics including marketing org design/leadership, budgets and metrics, demand generation and ABM, product marketing, marketing ops, sales enablement, and customer experience. Previously, Todd initiated and built Gartner’s coverage around ABM and ABM platforms.

Guest Ray Pun is a senior director analyst in Gartner’s technology marketing practice that serves emerging, midsize and enterprise-level technology and service providers. He provides research and advisory services to help clients improve their go-to-market effectiveness with a focus on ABM, marketing metrics and B2B marketing technologies. As a key initiative leader, he is responsible for orchestrating a vibrant research agenda for topics related to partner and developer ecosystems, product-led growth and marketing performance. In addition, Ray is the lead author for Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Account-Based Marketing Platforms.

Guest Jenifer Silverstein is a senior director, analyst for Gartner for Technology and Service Providers, based in Massachusetts. She is a content leader for Gartner’s research focusing on technology marketing demand generation planning and execution. In her role as analyst, she provides research and advisory services to help clients establish and optimize their demand generation, ABM and digital marketing strategies. She is a co-author for Gartner’s Magic Quadrant on Account-Based Marketing Platforms, delivering a comprehensive view for marketers to evaluate platforms that can best help their organization enable better decision making, improve engagement across accounts and deliver measurable value.