About Forrester
Forrester Research, Inc. is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.

Jennifer is a member of Forrester's Business Technology Futures team, which serves CIOs and their business partners by predicting the long-term business impacts of information technology. Her research focus is on smart computing and analytics and tech-driven business transformation, analyzing changing patterns of technology adoption and deployment, particularly in emerging markets and in the public sector. She advises clients on market opportunity assessments for investment and go-to-market best practices in emerging markets, balancing demand-side research with understanding of the policy and competitive environments. Jennifer's recent research has focused on "smart city" initiatives as a way of managing the complexity of demographic changes and leveraging technology solutions in response to the demands of an increasingly urban population. These initiatives apply equally to cities, universities, and even company towns as they are stretched by growing populations and shrinking resources.
Before joining Forrester, Jennifer spent more than eight years in sales and marketing roles at Sun Microsystems, including roles in software product marketing, software sales enablement and development, and industry marketing and partner strategy for telecommunications and media.
Jennifer's extensive international experience includes more than 20 years in sales and marketing, research, consulting, and education in developing and transitioning countries. As a public policy analyst and consultant in Russia and Eastern Europe, she designed post-communist housing reforms and advised governments on housing privatization, mortgage finance policies, and income-based assistance programs. As an educator in the Peace Corps in Central Africa, Jennifer taught high school math, designed national math curricula and exams, and conducted marketing workshops with local entrepreneurs. Jennifer has published in numerous academic journals and spoken widely at academic and business events.
Jennifer earned a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science from Stanford University and a B.A. in economics from the University of Virginia. Her doctoral research focused on the fiscal and political relationships between regional governments and the central administration, combining quantitative analysis of regional budget data with extensive fieldwork in Moscow and three Russian regions — Udmurtiya, Novgorod, and Ulyanovsk.
If you haven't heard the latest office gossip, you might want to figure out why. As workers increasingly work from home, a coffee shop, a public library, the train, or one of the new coworking s...

Data has become quite the buzzword lately, with everyone looking to mine their big data for customer insights, operational efficiencies, and business performance improvement. Governments are no ...

Local governments must address the needs of diverse and often growing constituencies with limited and often dwindling resources — following that age-old mandate of doing more with less. In...
One of the most significant changes in city governance has been the growing trend toward constituent engagement — both with individual citizens and local businesses. Even in non-democratic...

After years of stagnant enterprise spending on information and communications technology (ICT), Africa is gearing up for a new period of growth. As political stability across the continent gradu...

Despite the dire straits of the world economy, emerging markets continue to hold significant promise for the tech industry. Increased business and consumer use of the Internet and information an...
This document provides highlights of an extensive data set collected via Forrester's Enterprise Global Technology Adoption Survey, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, And Africa, Q1 2009. ...
This document provides enterprise highlights of an extensive data set collected via Forrester's Enterprise And SMB Global IT Budgets And Spending Survey, Q2 2009. The survey covers budget trends...
Population growth and urbanization are stretching many cities' infrastructure and resources to breaking point. Policymakers and public leaders are increasingly looking to ICT solutions to effect...

A group of tech marketers and Forrester analysts recently engaged in an all-day Forrester event in London on the use of social media in a B2B marketing context. Our discussions focused on trends...
The report looks into the new opportunities provided by open government data for both new and existing businesses.
View All Jennifer Belissent's Planned Reports