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

Vikram leads the forecast team, which is responsible for producing all forecasts within M&S research. He is focused on the consumer commerce areas including retail, travel, and financial services. He is keenly involved in understanding the evolution of consumers' online behavior and technology adoption.
Vikram came to Forrester Research through its acquisition of Jupiter Research, where he started in July 2000. Prior to Jupiter, Vikram worked at IRI, a leading market research company, where he worked closely with some of the leading CPG companies.
Vikram often appears on TV, radio, and comments in the press on the US online retail and travel industry. He has been quoted in The L.A. Times, Business Week, The New York Times, CNN Money, and American Banker. He has also appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Radio, NPR, Fox Business News, and ABC.
Vikram earned an M.B.A. from Virginia Tech and a B.Com from N.M College in Mumbai, India.
Was the introduction of the Ford Model T an improvement or an innovation over the horse drawn wagon? As an SVM professional, you may ask, “Why is this question important for me?” But as...
In the mid-1990s companies tried to combine some of the advantages of outsourcing with the benefits of keeping important internal know-how and key resources. As a result, the shared service center...
What tools should I use for IT Outsourcing Governance?

Vision: The SVM Practice Playbook
A Hot Market, But Questions About ROI, Vendors, And Integration Remain
Forrester has identified pervasive video as one of the four "groundswell" technologies that IT leadership will use to empower their employees over the next decade. Since Forrester's insights on video...
Vision: The SVM Practice Playbook
Over the next years, Forrester expects IT organizations as we know them today to change dramatically, a result of a new wave of emerging technologies and a shift in the way employees use technology....

In Q3 2011, Forrester fielded its second annual Global Sourcing And Vendor Management Priorities Survey to 156 sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals. In this survey, SVM professionals...
What does Forrester refer to as co-sourcing model; what is Forrester's definition of a co-sourcing model; and what are the major pros and cons of a co-sourcing model compared to dedicated model?
What do I have to do to prepare for defining a sourcing strategy?
IT Archetype Serves As The Foundation For Effective Organizational Alignment
Although most companies understand the need for a more strategic vendor management office (VMO), many of these companies don't know where to organize their vendor management activities. Because...
Rumors became official on Tuesday: Siemens succeeded in finding a viable partner to buy its IT Solutions and Services (SIS) business. For all of us following the market in the past it wasn’t a...
Very few IT organizations have complete control over the corporatewide IT investments that are spent with external services providers. In Forrester's Forrsights Budget And Priorities Tracker Survey,...
The VMO is becoming more and more important for companies. As such, the demand to create a structure is prominent. To avoid pitfalls and get a jump-start on this, we at Forrester designed a workshop...
Skills And Staffing: The SVM Practice Playbook
Many sourcing and vendor management organizations (SVMOs) are delivering effectively against their core mandate today, despite resource constraints. However, most SVM professionals are mapping their...

Most of my clients today monitor at least their key suppliers to mitigate risk. But the criteria they look at are mostly limited to the contractual ("Do I get what I pay for?") and financial...
What support should I choose to help make the decision of what external resource to source (time and materials, strategic partner through managed services, external consultants with niche, specific...
Professional sourcing and vendor management organizations (SVMOs) have the potential to become one of the most important organizations in their enterprises, due in large part to their core...
What are additional roles/responsibilities of the VMO?
Hi everybody. I'd like to get your opinion on the discussion about RfP versus RfS (Request for Solution). How do you see the difference? I am always using the term RfP for the activities to...
Strategic Plan: The SVM Practice Playbook
As more and more companies rely on external suppliers to facilitate core business operations, the need for a clearly defined sourcing strategy is more important than ever. Successful companies have...

Focus On A Supplier's Market Performance, Not Just Its Delivery Performance
The increasing importance of innovation and strong vendor management to most sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals is having a major effect on the dynamics of sourcing strategy. In...
What does a vendor management system look like and what are the vendor qualifications (certifications, ethics, compliance, etc.)?
Value Communication: The SVM Practice Playbook
Many sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals fear getting called into their CIO's office to justify their value. This fear often has some justification: Because executive leaders often...

Imagine the following: You’re about to embark on a road trip through the desert. Anyone who loves living would put the car they rely on into a repair shop prior to starting this journey to make...
The Forrester SVMO Maturity Model is designed to provide SVM professionals with a brief self-assessment tool that enables SVM organizations to evaluate their program maturity, articulate the...
Aligning Key Stakeholders With Sourcing Process Increases Value
Forrester defines different generations of outsourcing capabilities within firms based on the level of experience. Companies starting on their outsourcing initiatives are defined as "first...
