At the beginning of a Forrester Wave™ or Forrester New 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, that vendor is a full participant. 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 during the Wave process or in the final report.

Vendors need to 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 or Forrester New Wave evaluation.
• The research states if a vendor did not fully participate in the research. We identify full participants in Forrester Wave or Forrester New Wave graphic with a white bubble; others get a gray bubble.
• We score non-participants 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. 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 the scorecard, and won’t have the option to escalate disputes to a Forrester manager.