Talking Headless Recap
Trust closes deals that data points cannot close alone. That was the throughline of a special APAC and Australia edition of Talking Headless Live, broadcast live from India. Sudeshna Mukherjee, who runs global analyst and advisor relations (AR) for a living, and Amit Dengle, an analyst who studies how that trust actually gets built and measured, joined the show to talk about what makes the function work. Their conversation moved past the mechanics of briefings and requests for information (RFIs) into the parts of the job nobody puts in a case study: patience, internal cooperation, and relationships built with no agenda attached.
Analyst Relations Rewards Patience Over Speed
Sudeshna spent twenty years building this career, starting as a marketing communications generalist, moving into public relations (PR), and eventually combining PR with AR into one specialization. She calls that combination rare and says it gives her a wider view of how marketing, communications, and analyst engagement connect.
Her advice to anyone considering the move: treat AR as its own discipline, not a PR side project. Newcomers have to learn which analyst firms to engage, how to map coverage to the business, and how to convince internal teams to show up on calls. None of that happens on the first try.
"You should have the tenacity to drive the thing. It'll take time. It's a long run program. You cannot drop the ball."
Sudeshna compares it to submitting proposals: rejection doesn't stop you from submitting the next one. The outcomes of AR work the same way. A briefing that goes nowhere this quarter can become a research citation, a reference call, or a partnership a year later.
Cross-Functional Support Decides Whether AR Survives
Neither guest treats AR as something one person can run alone. Sudeshna manages analyst, advisor, and PR functions globally at Mastek, and she's direct about what that requires: buy-in from business, finance, HR, and learning and development (L&D) teams, plus sales and delivery leaders who can produce customer references on demand. Her rule for the AR lead sitting in the middle of all that:
"Don't be the gatekeeper."
That last part, sales and delivery releasing a reference, is the friction point. Getting a customer on an analyst reference call means convincing teams to release something they'd rather hold for a deal. Sudeshna has hit that resistance at mid-sized and large firms alike.
"AR is not a very standalone function. Unless other teams are supporting you, you will never be successful."
The fix isn't a bigger AR team. It's a marketing leader who treats AR as a company-wide commitment and clears the internal path before the analyst asks for it.
Briefings and Inquiries Call for Different Feedback Rules
Amit and Sudeshna both draw a hard line between two types of analyst calls. A briefing is a vendor's chance to present its story, usually to a panel of several analysts. An inquiry is the vendor asking the analyst directly for feedback. Confusing the two damages the relationship.
Amit's rule as an analyst: a vendor earns the benefit of the doubt walking into a briefing, because someone put in real effort to get the right people on the call. If the presentation falls short, he saves the critique for after the meeting.
"We have invited them because we trust they would have done a great job. If things miss out, they do miss out. We will hear them, and when the meeting is over, over a coffee, you spend time highlighting what clearly needs to change."
Sudeshna has watched teams lose momentum mid-briefing when an analyst breaks that rule and critiques the presentation in front of the whole panel instead. The team came in with an agenda, couldn't finish it, and the call becomes a write-off.
"If you start criticizing me from the beginning of a briefing call, I don't appreciate that. That's not the right way."
She also asks analysts to remember the labor behind every briefing: coordinating internal teams, pushing sales for a reference, locking a date that works for six people instead of one. An inquiry call, where the vendor asks "here's where I am, can you help me move this," is the right venue for direct critique. A briefing isn't.
Trust Becomes the Differentiator When AI Flattens the Field
Sudeshna closes on the point that ties the whole conversation together. In IT services especially, feature differentiation is thin. When the market gets crowded and artificial intelligence (AI) narrows the gap between vendors further, the deciding factor is whether people already trust you before they need you.
"This is relationship building. This is trust building."
Amit picks up the same thread from the analyst side. He advises on technology programs representing more than $6 billion in contract value (a figure he shared on the show; not independently audited), and his read on where that trust actually comes from is blunt.
"Trust is the only currency that's going to survive any technological disruption. As long as people are able to trust you, you're in the right business."
His shorthand for what that looks like in practice: a vendor is not just a dot on a chart. A 2 a.m. escalation can turn into a team working until 4 a.m., and none of that effort ever shows up in a report.
The proof point came from Sudeshna's own year. She set a goal to stop spending every day on transactional RFIs and started reaching out to people with no agenda. One of those outreach messages went to Amit on LinkedIn. Amit describes what happened next as a three-hour call with his co-founder Florian that reshaped PlanckPoint Research's target market: instead of chasing large enterprise clients, the firm repositioned around mid-sized companies with, in Amit's words, "brilliant people, awesome teams, great work ethic" and one missing piece: visibility.
The Live Audience Backed This Up in Real Time
Ankit Sharma, an analyst relations lead, watched the episode live and matched Sudeshna's gatekeeper line with his own read on what pan-organization access actually takes.
"Don't be the Gatekeeper. So true. Pan-organization access is the key in AR. Help marketers, share relevant reports, make leadership meet the key analysts. Have the workshops facilitated."
He followed it with a line that could stand as the episode's thesis: "Truth and trust, two major pillars in any business and personal relationship." Vishnu Karthikeyan, who leads global analyst relations at HCLTech, closed out the comments thanking Shashi, Sudeshna, and Amit for a session he called full of perspective from start to finish.
What to Do Monday
Stop scoring AR by the call. Track relationship activity across the quarter, not placements per briefing, and give the function room to build trust before it produces a citation.
Pre-commit customer references with sales and delivery leadership once a year, not deal by deal, so AR isn't negotiating for access every time an analyst asks.
Separate the briefing from the feedback session. Let your team present without interruption, then take the critique afterward, one-on-one, where it actually lands.
Works Cited
Bellamkonda, Shashi, host. "Sudeshna Mukherjee and Amit Dengle on Talking Headless, Live from India." Misunderstood Marketing, 22 Sept. 2026, www.misunderstoodmarketing.com/2026/09/sudeshna-mukherjee-and-amit-dengle-on.html.
Talking Headless Episode Archive. YouTube, uploaded by Playaz Productions Network, youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn_IaOpV9Ld7qx-z7C_4EY4E2OjGvWQyT.
Mukherjee, Sudeshna. LinkedIn profile, linkedin.com/in/mukherjeesudeshna.
Dengle, Amit. LinkedIn profile, linkedin.com/in/amitdengle.
Sharma, Ankit. Comment on Talking Headless Live broadcast. LinkedIn, linkedin.com/in/ankit-s-4b125b36.
Karthikeyan, Vishnu. Comment on Talking Headless Live broadcast. LinkedIn, linkedin.com/in/vishnujb1998.