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.
It does not come as a real surprise that the deal aimed at merging AT&T's and Deutsche Telekom's US wireless operations got nowhere. We were expecting as much back in autumn. In our view,...
Dane Anderson, Dan Bieler, Charlie Kun Dai, Chris Mines, Nupur Singh Andley, Tirthankar Sen, Christopher Voce, Bryan Wang Huawei is one of the most intriguing companies in the ICT...
Network Sharing And Outsourcing Is In Many Telcos' Future
Network infrastructure has long been the telco business's cash cow. In recent years, this cow has suffered from a poor diet as the result of pricing pressure, network overloads, and nontelco...


Vodafone agreed to acquire Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for 1.04 billion pounds in cash, valuing CWW at three times EBITDA. The deal propels Vodafone to the second largest telco in the UK with...
As Carriers Move To Embrace OTT, Enterprises Will Benefit
Over the top (OTT), the network-agnostic delivery of digital services, marks an important shift in the delivery and consumption of information and communications technology (ICT) services. OTT breaks...

Dan Bieler, Frederic Giron, Brownlee Thomas, Ph.D., Stefan Ried, Christopher Mines, Pascal Matzke, Jennifer Belissent, Ph.D. T-Systems hosted its 2012 analyst and sourcing advisor event recently. To...
Cloud Computing Presents Opportunities And Risks For Telcos And Their Customers
Cloud computing is changing the telco business model: Traditional telecom offerings migrate into the cloud and evermore over-the-top (OTT) players enter the telco value chain. Corporate CIOs should...

In light of my expectations (http://goo.gl/ZIU9d), Mobile World Congress contained few real surprises this year. This is not to say that MWC was boring: It provided valuable insights into the...
Dan Bieler, Enza Iannopollo Boring as it may appear, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), which just took place in Dubai under the auspices of the International...
As an analyst who focuses on the future of communications and the implications for business, I will travel to Mobile World Congress (MWC) with several expectations: There will be a greater focus on...
During its Fujitsu Forum, which was attended by over 10,000 customers and partners, Fujitsu presented itself as a company in transformation from a fairly disjointed business to a more streamlined...
Prepare For The Implications Of Over-The-Top Communications
Telecom carriers' core revenue base, voice and messaging, is under attack from the over-the-top (OTT) business model. Given the financial importance of voice and messaging revenues for carriers, they...

At its 2011 Analyst Event in Boston, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) outlined more details of its recently announced strategy review. In our view, the new focus NSN is taking is right. NSN is focusing...
The Joyn Initiative Will Help Evolve Engagement Strategies
As companies evolve their strategies to embrace systems of engagement, CIOs are likely to benefit from the emergence of a new major social media communications platform, rich communication services...
with Thomas Husson At the beginning of this year, I took the time to sit down with my colleague Thomas Husson, vice president and principal analyst on Forrester's consumer product...
Network infrastructure is the basis for all funding of telco activities; as such, telcos must not only keep the cash cow alive, but also strengthen it. Management of network infrastructure is easily...
Telcos are an endangered species; their traditional business model has come undone, and many operators face a downward revenue/earnings/investment spiral. The classic telco position is eroding due to...
Recently I attended one of the day-long events in Munich that Google offers as part of its atmosphere on tour road show that visits 24 cities globally in 2012. The event series is aimed at enterprise...
Insights From The Forrsights Networks And Telecommunications Survey, Q1 2012
The connected enterprise is becoming a reality. Businesses require access to the best market information regarding customer demand, supplier options, transport and logistics, and sales patterns. They...

During its European Analyst Summit in London, Huawei provided details regarding two crucial elements of its expanding market positioning: It outlined its intention to launch mobile devices and...
I attended Trend Forum 2012 last week in Bonn, effectively an analyst day where Deutsche Telekom presented its innovation strategy. There was no focus on overall group strategy. Still, innovation...
Dan Bieler and Katyayan Gupta This was possibly the most important Nokia World event ever. Nokia had to demonstrate that it can deliver against its plans. In February 2011, Nokia communicated its...
This summer Switzerland’s incumbent carrier, Swisscom, launched a simple but revolutionary new mobile tariff, Natel Infinity. Infinity is a speed-based tariff that comes in the versions...
Deutsche Telekom is leading its daughter T-Mobile USA down the aisle for a second time in less than two years after the previous marriage attempt with AT&T collapsed in light of regulatory...
This week, Colt launched its Ceano cloud services for SMBs with a particular focus on the reseller channel that actually services these businesses. As this announcement combines the business strategy...