Andrew Bartels

We have just completed our Forrester Wave™ evaluation of source-to-contract (S2C) suites (“The Forrester Wave™: Source-To-Contract Suites, Q4 2019 — The 11 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up“). These S2C suites combine four related buy-side software products: eSourcing, contract lifecycle management (CLM), spend analytics, and supplier risk and performance management (SRPM). We […]

Which is the right choice: best-of-breed apps or application suites? This is a perennial question CIOs and business partners face in selecting application software. Forrester’s data on the ePurchasing software market — software that helps firms choose, contract with, buy from, and manage suppliers — shows that both options remain competitive. Indeed, it may well […]

Sourcing software helps firms create, organize, and manage sourcing events that will allow them to get the best deals on direct materials, indirect materials, and services. Generally, eSourcing software vendors fall into one of three market segments — source-to-contract suite vendors, eSourcing specialists, and industry/geographic sourcing platforms — and should be evaluated by their size, […]

European tech markets will experience slowing growth in 2020, according to Forrester’s latest forecast for the European tech market as a whole and for tech markets in the eight largest countries (“European Tech Market Outlook For 2019 To 2020” and “European Tech Market Outlook By Country For 2019 To 2020”). European business and government purchases […]

We expect tech spending to decrease in 2020. Read the details.

The Canadian tech market will grow in 2019 and 2020, but growth will slow from 6% in 2018 to 3.7% in 2019, according to Forrester’s report, “The Canadian Tech Market Outlook For 2019 To 2020.” The healthy growth of the Canadian tech market has largely been caused by an expansion in cloud services and government […]

Improving productivity has traditionally been a key justification for technology investments. However, trends in overall US productivity indicate that increases in tech spending no longer raise overall US productivity as much as in the past. Given that US firms have theoretically been investing heavily in digital transformation, the failure of overall US productivity to grow […]

 In my tech market forecasts, I am starting to see the intersection of two worrisome trends: Software subscription fees for multitenant SaaS or for single-instance hosted software are rising rapidly, with a growing percentage related to existing software as opposed to new and with a high percentage having fixed annual fees or fees tied to […]

Forrester has just published its 2019 industry outlook for US tech budgets, with forecasts for how firms in different industries will increase and allocate their spending this year (see the Forrester report, “2019 US Tech Budgets: Industry Outlook“). Our overall forecast of growth is 6.1% for US business and government spending on tech goods; services […]

Forrester has just published our forecast for US tech employment and compensation (see “2019 US Tech Talent Market Outlook”). It has some foreboding news for CIOs and for tech vendors: Tech talent will be harder to find and more expensive over the next two years. The good news is that the supply of tech workers […]

The US tech economy is starting to spread from major cities on the East and West Coasts to inland metro areas. This is great news for American cities, employers, and tech workers. Inland urban centers that were once considered flyover cities are now bustling with tech startups and incubators, as well as the tech workforces […]

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its Q2 2018 report on US gross domestic product this morning, and it contained some surprises for the US tech market. Real GDP growth for the quarter was about what we expected: 4.1% on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis versus our assumption of 3.9% in our July […]

The Canadian tech market will grow in both 2018 and 2019, but growth will slow from 5% in 2017 and 2018 to 3.7% in 2019, according to Forrester’s report, “The Canadian Tech Market Outlook For 2018 To 2019.” These growth rates, while healthy, still lag the US tech market’s growth by a couple of percentage […]

At the midpoint in 2018, the US tech market is on track to grow by 6.7% in 2018, the fastest growth since 2012. In our just-published report, “US Tech Market Outlook For 2018 And 2019: Cloud Powers Tech Spend To 6% Growth And Software To 8% Growth,” we can provide strength in all tech budget categories, […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a widely-discussed topic in the software market. To assess how software vendors are using AI, we conducted a survey of two dozen ePurchasing and contract lifecycle management (CLM) vendors about how they were creating, sourcing, offering, and pricing AI features and functions.  The key finding in our report (see AI Drives […]

Forrester projects that the global tech market for business and government purchases of technology goods, software, and services will grow by around 5% in 2018 and 2019 measured in constant currencies (see “The Global Tech Market Outlook for 2018 To 2019: Continued Tech Growth Will Peak In 2018 At 5.1% In Constant Currencies“).  Measured in […]

Is the US suffering a tech talent gap? That impression has been showing up in the press a lot, and seems to fit with a perception of a dysfunctional US education system. But while it may be challenging to recruit workers with certain tech skills, in a new Forrester report, “Debunking The US Tech Talent […]

Forrester’s has published its mid-year global tech market outlook for 2017 and 2018 (see “Midyear Global Tech Market Outlook For 2017 To 2018”). In constant currencies, we project that global purchases of technology software, hardware, and services by businesses and governments will grow by 3.4% in 2017, and by 4% in 2018. Software and tech […]

Forrester’s European tech market forecast for 2017 and 2018 has just been published (see “European Tech Market Outlook For 2017 To 2018”). We project that growth in purchases of technology software, hardware, and services by European businesses and government measured in Euros will hold steady at 1.6% in 2017, and increase to 2.2% in 2018. […]