At the beginning of a Forrester Wave™, Forrester invites vendors that meet our inclusion criteria to participate in our research. When a vendor returns the Wave questionnaire and provides Forrester with a briefing/demo session according to our schedule, we treat that vendor as a full participant in the Wave process. If a vendor declines to fill out the questionnaire or provide a briefing/demo session, we will not treat that vendor as a full participant.
Vendors must be aware that:
- Forrester reserves the right to evaluate products and services, regardless of vendor participation. An evaluation that leaves out an important provider would be an incomplete portrayal of the market and therefore incomplete guidance to our clients. We will not consider vendor requests to remove themselves from a Forrester Wave.
- We score offerings using information available to us. For vendors that are not full participants, Forrester uses primary and secondary research in its analysis. For example, we might use public information, data gathered via briefings, and independently sourced client interviews to score the vendor. We may ask the vendor for an abbreviated briefing and/or to provide reference customers. We may also rely on estimates to score vendors.
- Only full participants are covered by our Forrester Wave™ Vendor Review Policy. If a vendor declines to return a questionnaire or provide a briefing, it won’t have the opportunity to provide feedback on its scorecard and won’t have the option to escalate disputes to a Forrester manager.
Recommendations
Understand The Rules For Participation
Forrester seeks to provide a fair and transparent process for vendors that choose not to participate or submit specific information. To avoid conflicts, we recommend that vendors thoroughly review the policies listed on the Forrester Policies page. This includes The Forrester Wave™ Methodology and The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Review Policy, and this document.
