If you haven’t kept up with the activity in the marketing technology space – acquisitions, product enhancements, "cloud" wars, et al., then I don’t blame you. The marketing technology landscape is complex, crowded, and confusing. To compete in the age of the customer, enterprises are quickly deploying technology to manage big data, execute contextual marketing, and orchestrate real-time customer interactions.

Whether you are a marketing technology vendor, buyer, or end user, this is an exciting time, and I am thrilled to join Forrester as a principal analyst on the Customer Insights team. I am based in London, and I will cover marketing technology along with my colleague Cory Munchbach. Together we will help Customer Insights (CI) Professionals as they navigate the digital marketing landscape and make marketing technology investment decisions. With a background that includes more than 25 years’ experience in marketing, customer analytics, product management, and product marketing, with both large and small vendors in the marketing technology sector, I am excited about my new role at Forrester and on the CI team.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be working with fellow analysts Jason McNellis on the cross-channel campaign management Forrester Wave™ and Cory Munchbach on the enterprise marketing platform Forrester Wave. I will also kick off my own research specifically addressing the impact of vendor activity on the marketing technology buyer as my first brief and then further explore the convergence of digital marketing, cross-channel campaign management, and real-time interaction management for the rest of the year. Stay tuned for more details on my planned research here.

For anyone who will be attending Forrester’s Forum For Marketing Leaders in London, May 13 and 14, please say hello or book a one-to-one meeting. For everyone else, I look forward to meeting you in the course of my research. In the meantime, please let me know if there are areas of particular interest to you. Follow me @RustyWarner for research updates!