About Forrester
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Shar serves Marketing Leadership professionals. She is a leading expert on how businesses can leverage interactive marketing channels and technologies to drive sales and deepen customer relationships. During her 12 years with Forrester, Shar has been instrumental in the development of many of the company's interactive marketing program evaluation methodologies, training courses, and marketing planning tools and has also been part of Forrester's sales and consulting organizations.
Shar's research focuses on overall interactive marketing strategies; crafting efficient, effective interactive programs; organizing for interactive marketing; and integrating interactive channels into the rest of the marketing mix. Specific subjects addressed in Shar's research include email marketing, online advertising, search engine marketing, ad serving and targeting, interactive budgeting and forecasts, and interactive marketing organizational models.
Shar returned to Forrester in 2004 after several years away working in marketing consulting. Shar served as research director for marketing research boutique, TideWatch, where she led internal strategy efforts and client strategy projects. Shar was also a consultant with Carlson Marketing Group's Business Strategy Consulting team, developing CRM and email programs for clients including British Airways, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and Home Depot. Shar began her career at Forrester in 1997 during the early days of the Internet and has written research on customer loyalty, ad networks, and marketing measurement and planning.
A popular speaker, Shar has been seen on stage at ad:tech, MITX, DMA, and the Email Service Provider Coalition events, among others. She is on the board of SEMPO — the search engine marketing professionals organization — and is also widely quoted in the press including such media outlets as BusinessWeek, Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and is a frequent guest on CNBC and National Public Radio.
Shar is a graduate of Harvard University.
I've been spending the last few months doing research and a number of speaking engagements and webinars on the evolution of Big Data in Asia Pacific. What has become clear is that APAC...
The maturity and sophistication of existing data warehousing (DW) implementations across the Asia Pacific (AP) region has been variable, to say the least. If the hype around big data is to be...

This document provides an overview of cloud computing in Australia and New Zealand for vendor strategists. There is a focus on cloud adoption trends and demand drivers, benefits and challenges,...
IBM has just announced that one of Australia’s “big four” banks, the ANZ, will adopt the IBM Watson technology in their wealth management division for customer service and...
Springboard Research witnessed strong uptake of the development of mobile "micro-apps" within Asia Pacific (AP) enterprises during 2010. The majority of these applications were driven by internal...
Email has emerged as one of the leading enterprise applications for cloud computing over the last 12-18 months. Both Microsoft and Google have become the dominant enterprise players with VMware...
"Google Apps," a suite of online productivity applications developed by Google, has remained a curiosity for the majority of business users in Asia Pacific (AP). While mainstream media frequently...
Springboard Research has witnessed strong interest - and uptake - from telco providers in delivering cloud computing services to both enterprise and small to medium-size clients. However, structural...
Following the recent successful integration of its latest acquisitions, Oracle is ramping up its marketing messages around cloud enabling enterprise data centres via what it is positioning as an...
A number of Forrester analysts from the Asia Pacific region attended the recent SAP analyst event in Singapore. Meetings with SAP global and regional executives and a large number of detailed...
Business Goals: The BT Strategic Planning Playbook
Clear business goals lie at the heart of good strategy. Unfortunately, many organizations have aspirational goals that make strategic planning difficult at best, and they lack the mechanism to...

Where social software was once considered a "plaything" for tech savvy users and generation-Y, leading organisations globally are now recognising that the benefits extend well beyond simply...
Australian Banks have often been at the forefront of global banking trends, or at the very least, fast followers that learn quickly from the mistakes of others. In Australia, mobile banking has...
Reporting Manager. Computer Systems Manager. MIS Director. IT Manager. Chief Technology Officer. Director Of IT. Chief Information Officer. It's not just a change of job title. It's the...
Springboard Research notes a variety of factors that drive SMBs in growth markets either toward, or away from, Linux. Though a significant proportion of adoption today remains server-based, Linux...
Indian CIOs Risk Losing Business Credibility If They Do Not Improve Their Understanding Of BT
A slow but relentless global revolution is sweeping traditional technology management. Historically, only IT organizations delivered technology for employee use. But this is changing: Technology use...

In a recent media interview I was asked about whether the requirements for data visualization had changed. The questions were focused around whether users are still satisfied with dashboards, graphs...
Springboard Research notes continuing concerns around information security and data residency when evaluating potential cloud service providers/solutions. We are also witnessing a slow - but growing...
Springboard Research notes that rising interest in the implementation of private clouds is creating confusion in the market. More importantly, misaligned business expectations and unrealistic...
The Top 10 Trends Affecting Market Maturity And Growth
Business intelligence (BI) adoption drivers, technology understanding, and organizational process maturity continue to vary widely across Asia Pacific. The one constant in this market is the...

Springboard Research notes rapid, rising interest in software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-related offerings - despite the impending and inevitable fatigue from over-hype. As distinct from managed...
This document provides vendor strategists with an evaluation of Cisco's corporate restructuring announcement. Cisco's vision is explained and its network-centric offerings are analyzed. Additionally,...
A Self-Assessment Framework To Focus And Accelerate Your Transformation
Many CIOs struggle to answer two deceptively simple questions: 1) How are we doing, and 2) what should I prioritize? These questions invite a host of complexities, raising questions about the role of...
In a previous post I highlighted that disruptive technologies don't even need to be implemented to be disruptive. The mere fact that vendors and other organisations are either creating or being...
Springboard Research believes the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle will continue to have a significant impact on the enterprise IT landscape for years to come. For individual IT...