We have similar gartner/forester "analyst" expenditure issues. That said, for many types of enterprise software this is a cost of doing business - pretty much all our customers go to gartner/forester first to ask who they should be looking to buy from - if we didn't deal with these guys we'd never sell anything.

It's kinda distasteful how much these guys are basically "shake down" merchants you are forced to pay, but given in many industries there's literally no choice I can't call it a waste of money. It also never ceases to amaze me how many vapourware/unfinished features end up in their "reports" because they regurgitate whatever the marketing team has told them we do.

Salaries for people who can't get deep work done due to the noise of the open office.

Agile Coaches.