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

Randy serves Application Development & Delivery Professionals. He is a leading expert on architectures and design approaches for building enterprise applications that are secure and resilient in the face of continuous business and technology change. This makes service-oriented architecture (SOA) one of Randy's primary focus areas. Since enterprise applications need much more than SOA, Randy led the development of Forrester's digital business architecture, which provides a broad architectural context around SOA. For seven years, Randy has been a driving force for Forrester's research on application architecture trends, concepts, patterns, and best practices.
Particular focus areas within Randy's research include general application architecture and design issues; overall SOA strategy; SOA platform and infrastructure strategy; core SOA design concepts; Web services architecture; and standards, SOA security, SOA, and Web services management. He also covers coordination and leadership of other analysts' SOA work. Randy continues to develop strategies and structures to guide enterprises' longer-term evolution toward digital business architecture.
Randy has extensive experience with enterprise architecture management and application architecture and design. Randy was a chief architect at Sprint, where he led enterprise architecture and standardization efforts, along with the analysis and introduction of application servers, component architectures, object-oriented development, application security architectures, CORBA, distributed transaction management, and other new technologies. His IT experience also includes technology leadership, management, and application development with a Big Five consultancy and in the retail and litigation support industries.
Randy received a bachelor's of business administration from Baylor University's business school, where he was named the outstanding student in computer information systems.
Refining The Sourcing Life Cycle To Accommodate Changes In The Technology Landscape
New technologies, new service delivery models, and new competitive challenges are forcing companies to reconsider the way they source technologies for the business. While in the past cost was the...

As market pressures and changing customer expectations force firms to utilize more supplier-based solutions, the need to professionally manage this supply becomes vital. Whereas in the past,...
What does a vendor management system look like and what are the vendor qualifications (certifications, ethics, compliance, etc.)?

Vision: The SVM Practice Playbook
How To Source VMS And MSP Solutions Today
Forrester clients ask us many questions about services procurement software tools such as dedicated vendor management systems (VMSes) for contingent labor and broader services procurement tools for...

What is the industry framework for vendor segmentation for a VMO?
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...
What are additional roles/responsibilities of the VMO?
Processes: The SVM Practice Playbook
Many sourcing and vendor management (SVM) clients struggle to define the core process responsibilities of their job — and that's no surprise given the number of activities that SVM is...

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...
What do I have to do to prepare for defining a sourcing strategy?
Most smart sourcing professionals know that making smart sourcing decisions can result in a significant competitive advantage for their business. Yet in the face of rapid tech market changes,...
Executive Overview: The SVM Practice Playbook
Rapid changes in technology offerings, along with growing demand for technology-driven innovation, are forcing companies to rely much more heavily on their suppliers. More and more companies are...

It Empowers The Workforce, But Puts Pressure On Security And Risk
Clients often ask Forrester why they should pay for desktop video solutions when there are free consumer market solutions that could be available to everyone in the organization. This is a valid...
What are the dos and don'ts in setting up a vendor management office (VMO)?
Today's Tool Sets Improve Supplier Management Through Integration And Workflow
Sourcing organizations have matured, and sourcing and vendor management's integration with internal and external stakeholders will be the key to delivering value going forward. Forrester believes...

Sourcing and vendor management (SVM) organizations are the professional link between the internal business demand and the external supply resources. SVM professionals have to engage with business...

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...
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...
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...
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...
What tools should I use for IT Outsourcing Governance?
In the realm of IT services sourcing, the strategic decisions and vendor selection process for your company's applications and infrastructures are perhaps the most important. Your service...

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...
Generation Y's Presence In The Workforce Is Changing Sourcing Strategy
The rising importance of a digital native workforce is one of the key reasons that organizations seek to create a dynamic workplace — a workplace in which employees can work independent of time...
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...