Around Soichi Nakajima from IDATE DigiWorld in 10 questions

Following our IIAR Webinar with Soichi Nakajima, Digital Telco Practice Lead (@NakajimaSoichi, LinkedIn) at IDATE DigiWorld, here’s his interview in ten questions.

1. What are your coverage areas?
I cover all things Internet services and players; if you want to talk about the GAFA(M), FAMGA (yes it’s the same thing), FANG, BAT(X)… I’m all yours. To add a bit of flavor, I specifically take a telecommunication angle to cover the intersections of the Internet and telco worlds. Naturally this leads me to cover the US and China often, but being based in France we also have great European coverage, and it helps being Japanese to cover the Far East.

2. What are your opinions of the IT Analysis Marketplace and where do you see it going?
Let me give you a market cliché; there’s so much data around today but nobody knows what to do with it. Analysis of yesterday was about collecting the data, whereas analysis of today is about filtering the data. I believe the days of long, descriptive reports are long gone, and what we need are sharp, adaptable, to-the-point, relative and critical analyses.

3. What’s your typical day like?
The day starts with grinding fresh coffee beans… by hand, never with a machine! I’m an early starter and often first in the office, and would often start with calls to the Far East (which is already in the afternoon due to the time difference). Maybe a few games of table football/baby-foot/kicker would follow, and lunch in the garden. Oh yes, I do some work too… writing reports, talking to clients, brainstorming with colleagues, you get the picture. Or, I’m travelling.

4. Now, c’mon, tell me an AR horror story?
What’s my company name again? Oh yeah… IDATE. Need I say more? No, we are not a dating company, we are not i-DATE!

5. How do you position your firm? What is your business model?
We are actually over 40 years old, and based in France, which already makes us unique in this field. We have three axes of business; consulting, research and Institute. The first two are self-explanatory, but the Institute makes us a bit different. It is essentially a membership program to which we have 70+ members as of today, from various industries large and small. We operate “breakfast clubs” driven by these members every month in London, Paris and Brussels, where very interactive discussions take place. These activities then fuel our research and consulting activities, creating a nice little virtuous cycle. Oh by the way I am in charge of these clubs in London.

6. What is your research methodology?
Well I will end up repeating a little bit of what I mentioned above, but apart from the standard blabla of primary and secondary research, interviews etc., I really do believe what sets us apart is our access to the Institute members for real first-hand opinions and trends. On a personal note I’m a strong believer of the personal touch, and will try to implement this in my works.

7. Any favourite AR professional you’d like to mention? Any why?
Ah. I have come to learn that this type of question is a booby trap… I will always, always forget to mention someone. That said, I would certainly like to thank Ludovic Leforestier who gave me this opportunity, who also happens to be a top bloke.

8. What are your offerings and key deliverables?
We cover mainly the telecom, media and Internet fields. Our line of business is split into 5 main domains: fixed (such as FTTx), wireless (typically 5G), media (digital contents, video…), IoT, and digital telcos (Internet and telecom services).

9. Hobbies or favourite restaurant / food that you’d like to share?
I love both watching and playing football… so much so that I am the official organizer of 5-a-side football matches within our company. Some of my colleagues know me more for my football organizing skills rather than my analytical skills! The beer afterwards is always great too.

10. What is your biggest challenges for the upcoming 6 months? And for the next 30 mn?
Am I allowed to mention the Brexit?

Check also this post-webinar interview below

Post IIAR Webinar interview with Soichi Nakajima / Digital Telcos Practice Leader (@NakajimaSoichi, LinkedIn) with Ludovic Leforestier (@lludovic, LinkedIn) from the IIAR Board.

Other IIAR> Around in 10 Questions

• Around Rebecca Wettemann from Valoir in 10 questions
• Around Ben Wood from CCS Insight in 10 questions
• Around Alan Pelz-Sharpe from Deep Analysis in 10 questions
• Around Swapnil Bhatnagar from Avasant in 10 questions
• Around Virginie O’Shea from Firebrand Research in 10 questions
• Around Jim Lundy from Aragon Research in 10 questions
• Around Ollie O’Donoghue from PAC in 10 questions
• Around Stuart Ravens from Corax Insights in 10 questions
• Around Eveline Oehrlich from Research In Action in 10 questions
• Around Pete Marston from IDC in 10 questions