In the decade since the global financial crisis, much of the financial services industry has made a strong recovery. While many governments are still nursing large debts, most banks, investment management firms, and insurance companies have long since returned to good health. Growing economies, rising interest rates, and increased trading activity have delivered strong earnings […]
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 […]
Nearly half of the firms we survey are prioritizing innovation as key to their business strategy. When I step back and think about it, the reason for this is easy to understand: Exponential changes such as Moore’s law in the past and Metcalfe’s law today are accelerating the pace of business. In a recent study of […]
CMOs Should Rethink Their Efficiency Argument For An Effectiveness Strategy Headlines blustering about in-house agencies have marketers buzzing and agencies fretting. While the in-house trend has grown in popularity, it still lacks in maturity. Forrester partnered with leading industry association In-House Agency Forum to track the progress of in-house development. Here’s what we know. Popularity Soars […]
Fashion is the second-largest retail category after grocery. The eCommerce shift is a significant, palpable movement in most economies. A quarter of clothing, accessories, and footwear (fashion) spending already occurs online and is still rapidly growing. Brick-and-mortar and eCommerce retailers are vying for shoppers’ attention and dollars. In our recently published “Forrester Analytics: Online Fashion […]
Just a few years ago, conversations about robotic process automation (RPA) were scattered and far between. Those familiar with RPA had a limited understanding of its potential and at best had carried out only a few isolated “proof of concept” experiments. Today, the RPA market is estimated to reach $2.9 billion by 2021, and conversations are becoming more frequent. As a Forrester advisor on the Technology Council, I’ve partnered with senior technology leaders to find […]
Stay tuned for updates from the Forrester blogs.
SAP has been on an acquisition binge in recent years (Successfactors, hybris, Ariba, Concur, Fieldglass, CallidusCloud, Gigya and others) – a marked departure from SAP’s build-it-all strategy of the past. Qualtrics is the latest – and largest — in this shopping spree. Like many of the other acquisitions, Qualtrics will roll up into the Business […]
“Everything Is An Endpoint” Brings BlackBerry Back From The Dead For many, the fact that BlackBerry still exists — and the fact that it spent $1.4 million of the $2.4 billion in capital it had — is the most surprising part of the Cylance acquisition. BlackBerry hasn’t shirked its mythological status as the case study of what […]
We recently evaluated 12 midsize digital experience agencies in “The Forrester Wave™: Midsize Digital Experience Agencies, Q4 2018.” While nobody likes the word “midsize,” we all should pause and consider why bigger doesn’t always mean better. In the 36 customer reference calls, we heard over and over again that these smaller specialists — 500 to 2,700 […]
Web Summit took place for the third time in Lisbon earlier in November. Over the years, Web Summit has become one of the leading global conferences to discuss everything technology. The large presence of startups and fast pace of presentations across many different stages give Web Summit a particular edge. It is impossible for a single […]
After months of research, I am excited to publish our evaluation of the web CMS market (Forecast, Now Tech, and Forrester Wave™). Thank you to all the folks who worked so hard to make this happen! I firmly believe that enterprise customers need these solutions to be their partner and platform to build, deliver, and optimize amazing experiences on channels such as web and mobile. But there […]
A little over a year and a half ago, I completed an evaluation of data resiliency vendors, published as “The Forrester Wave™: Data Resiliency Solutions, Q3 2017.” I gleaned many insights from the assessment process as I spoke with vendors about their offerings and road map and with end users about their successes and challenges. […]
Today, business users need trusted data fast to make better business decisions, while business technology needs require lowering costs, minimizing complexity, and improving efficiency. In addition, the proliferation of data, and the explosion of new data sources such as social media, IoT and mobile, further aggravate the issue. Poorly integrated business data often leads to […]
We just wrapped up five months of in-depth research focused on providing some clarity into what technologies from which vendors actually enable Zero Trust (not just talk about it). It didn’t take long to discern those among the vendor community that really embraced the strategic benefits of Zero Trust — and those that seemed to just […]
Disruption is the new norm, but don’t let that intimidate you. Research Director Matt Guarini explains how CIOs can take the lead in the business of fast and furious. Featuring: Matt Guarini, Research Director Show Notes: The external market moves fast, technology moves fast, and customers want things immediately. There were big ambitions on the […]
Over the last five years, most large enterprises have slowly but surely matured from being data-aware to data-driven. They all collect data from operational and transactional applications; process the data into data lakes, data hubs, data warehouses, and data marts; and build business intelligence (BI) and analytics applications to understand what the data is telling […]
The Forrester New Wave™: Cybersecurity Risk Ratings, Q4 2018 Earlier today, we published “The Forrester New Wave™: Cybersecurity Risk Ratings, Q4 2018” evaluation. We take a close look at the nine most important vendors in this rising market, reviewing their current capabilities, customer references, and strategic road maps. This includes vendor profiles, with our analysis and buyer […]
Yesterday, SAP announced that it is acquiring Qualtrics for a hefty $8 billion in cash. For SAP, this does make some sense. SAP is often perceived as being a legacy provider that struggles to play in the consumer space, and this acquisition may help it make a larger data play. It may also enable SAP […]
I’ve always been attracted to the power of empathy. That being said, I’m a longtime fan of “soft” skills — skills that are helpful in relationship-building, making me a better friend and (presumably) a more tolerable colleague. Empathy clearly fits squarely there. But a more savvy marketer? A more insightful executive? A veritable customer whisperer? […]
I was in Shanghai last weekend to witness the largest 11/11 in history. Alibaba breaks another record, with 2018 GMV reaching RMB213.5 billion (US$30.8 billion), 27% higher than last year’s RMB168.3 billion ($25.3 billion). I’m excited to share some of the event highlights here: Stay tuned for the post-event report on Singles’ Day 2018.
Earlier last week, UK high-street apparel retailer New Look announced plans to close 85 stores, up from the 60 it announced in March. These closures are happening under the auspices of a restructuring deal (a CVA, first introduced as a “company voluntary arrangement” in the Companies Act 1980). Simultaneously, it unveiled a return to profitability […]
Automation and AI now impact every job — including every customer service job. AI handles, with increased confidence, repetitive work, allowing customer service agents to focus on tasks of greater value to the company. And customer service robots — which we define as semi- or fully autonomous physical machines that perform services to augment humans or automate tasks — […]
The US healthcare industry is a gold mine for industrial hackers. Commandeering hospital systems has become stable and profitable work for those willing to execute these attacks. Despite years of embarrassing data breaches, the industry has yet to respond and remains unprepared for the threat at hand. The US Department of Health and Human Services […]
New Look’s recently announced store closures are not explained uniquely by the growth of eCommerce. In the year leading up to March 2018, the company’s total sales — including online sales — both declined, which is worrying because, typically, we would expect that eCommerce would continue to grow as store sales decline with footfall. New Look acknowledges […]
Singles’ Day, the world’s largest online shopping festival, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. There’s no doubt that we will see another record-smashing year, although gross merchandise volume (GMV) will no longer be the highlight. Singles’ Day has always been Alibaba’s testbed for new business models and technologies, and this year is no exception. AI and […]
Africa is home to 20% of our planet’s land and 16% of its people, but none of the hyperscale public clouds run from data centers there — yet. Microsoft will offer Azure from data centers in Cape Town and Johannesburg later this year, and Amazon recently announced plans to follow suit with an Amazon Web Services […]
