http://www.forrester.com/ Forrester is an independent technology research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice about technology's impact on business. en-us 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 120 http://www.forrester.com/imagesV2/affiliates/logos/forrester.gif http://www.forrester.com/ http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55715&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55715 Enterprise architects guiding business transformation initiatives rely on artifacts from business process management (BPM) and master data management (MDM) strategies to identify the information services that provide the most value to the business and IT. Linking BPM and MDM strategies produces better results, but this can't happen if these strategies are not based on a common information architecture. In order for re-engineered business processes to work well, enterprise architects must collaborate with business process professionals, data managers, and IT stakeholders to ensure that these processes are built on a solid data foundation. Information & Knowledge Management Packaged Applications Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Henry Peyret" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55715&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55715 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55229&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55229 Business technology (BT) changes IT's roles within the enterprise, forcing IT leaders to deploy business service processes and technology demand management. CIOs are embarking on the IT-to-BT journey by concentrating their efforts on the consolidation and adoption of new service-oriented delivery models to increase business focus and their control of IT. To improve IT's responsiveness to the requirements for BT services, Forrester has enhanced its BT service portfolio framework by adding a catalog of standardized technical services and their associated service elements. The service profiles are structured into four categories: 1) application services; 2) data center services; 3) end user services; and 4) network services. IT executives should leverage the tools and catalog in the BTSP framework to address business needs by organizing relevant technical services around competency centers. IT Infrastructure & Operations IT Management Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Alexander Peters, Ph.D." <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55229&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55229 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55203&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55203 As the global economic downturn continues to put pressure on IT budgets, companies are taking a variety of measures to get more value for the money spent on IT services. But unlike the last recession in 2001 to 2002, when outsourcing and offshoring benefitted from strong anticyclical growth, the picture is much more mixed this time in terms of spending plans. This document summarizes the key highlights from Forrester's Enterprise IT Services Survey, North America And Europe, Q2 2009, which offers deeper insights into enterprise spending behavior for IT services and outsourcing. B2B Sales & Marketing Economy IT Services IT Spending & Budgeting Sourcing & Procurement Telecommunications Services Energy & Utilities Financial Services Government Healthcare & Life Sciences High-Tech Manufacturing Professional Services Retail Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Pascal Matzke, John C. McCarthy" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55203&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55203 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54967&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54967 Online consultation can range from the government's hosting an online discussion about policy issues to its co-authoring policy documents with its citizens. It's still a minority practice, but Australia has completed more than 100 online consultations — providing valuable lessons for governments worldwide. In particular, government should understand how its citizens use social media and/or express policy opinions. Using Forrester's POST method, governments can develop clear, realistic goals for consultations to successfully engage their citizens in productive debate. Government should only select tools when the online consultation strategy is clear. Internal leaders should take small steps toward online consultation when necessary — and big steps when the opportunity presents. Customer Experience Marketing & Advertising Consumer Technology Government Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Steven Noble" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54967&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54967 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=53737&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-53737 Mobile phones and networks have reached near-ubiquity in the US. Despite a paucity of new subscribers to sell service to, mobile operators will continue to reap the benefits of the advance of their technology over the coming five years. Postpaid subscriptions will continue to dominate, though slightly less so than today as an expanding range of prepaid options appeal to both new and existing subscribers. The inexorable shift in operator revenues from voice to data will continue as the number of mobile Net users more than doubles by 2014. Third-generation (3G) phones will form the majority of phones, comprising more than 80% of the installed base by 2014. eBusiness/eCommerce Telecommunications Services Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Charles S. Golvin, Seth Fowler" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=53737&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-53737 http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/why_mobile_could_reinvent_social_computing/q/id/6064/t/1 Facebook recently announced that 65 million users access its services via mobile phone, while Orange "Social Life" and Vodafone "360" are the latest initiatives of operators in the mobile Social Computing space. Indeed, mobile social activity is more than just accessing social networking sites while on the go. Mobile has the potential to become the hub of Social Computing activities and offer more than just a complementary PC experience. Mobile phones will increasingly become the glue that holds the social graph together, offering immediacy and presence, location, and context to interact with the real world as well as creation tools. The "always on" mobile connected handset is what frees social from the chains for the PC and thrusts it into the social real world. Marketing & Advertising Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Thomas Husson" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/why_mobile_could_reinvent_social_computing/q/id/6064/t/1 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55438&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55438 Forrester receives more than 20,000 inquiries every year that reflect the key questions for which vendors and users are seeking answers. In 2008 and the first half of 2009, 632 of these questions were related to the business intelligence (BI) market. Despite the economic situation, interest in BI solutions is strong, as they can provide the tools for success in challenging times. The focus of questions has shifted from vendor strategies in 2008 (the year of IBM's and SAP's mega acquisitions) to market trends and implementation practices in 2009. The analysis provides valuable insights for all BI players in the competitive BI market. Information & Knowledge Management Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Holger Kisker, Ph.D." <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55438&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55438 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55427&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55427 Most enterprises use value-added resellers (VARs), but in our research we found that clients are dissatisfied with their resellers' value for money. Sourcing managers should work out what they are spending with resellers across all product and business units and source it as a single strategic event. You may end up awarding parts to multiple VARs, but give them the chance to bid on the package. Sourcing teams should focus negotiations on extra services the VAR can provide, its global reach, and how much power it has with its software publisher. Sourcing & Procurement Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Duncan Jones, Caroline Roeleveld-Hoekendijk" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55427&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55427 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55412&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55412 Forrester's market momentum overview assists vendor strategy professionals in tracking the evolution of the IT management software (ITMS) market and in gathering intelligence about the major activities. In the first half of 2009, we tracked 165 different activities across four core categories of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), partnerships, new products, and changes in go-to-market strategies. We found that M&A activity continued its quiet period, compared with previous years, and that the main marketing focus was on product announcements. Now that Forrester has released a series of market momentum reports, it is also apparent that market momentum in ITMS is relatively quiet, compared with other markets, with the softness caused mainly by megavendors' inactivity or perhaps complacency. Marketing and strategy professionals at ITMS vendors must turn up their marketing dial to counter increased momentum in the cloud and virtualization sectors, which, while often serving as just marketing hype, is beginning to cause many ITMS buyers to re-evaluate their future spending plans. B2B Sales & Marketing IT Infrastructure & Operations IT Services Sourcing & Procurement High-Tech Professional Services Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Peter O'Neill" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55412&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55412 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54366&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54366 There is no longer a clear purchase path for consumers. Thirty-nine percent of European consumers begin their research process online when making a considered purchase. Those consumers who begin their research process online are also likely to ultimately purchase products online. Additionally, more than one in three European consumers mixes online and offline channels during the multichannel purchasing decision. The Internet is therefore a key channel in the purchasing process. What's more, cross-channel shoppers emerge as a lucrative group. To make the most of the Internet and offline retail worlds, eBusiness and channel strategy professionals must provide cross-channel researchers and shoppers with a seamless purchasing journey. eBusiness/eCommerce Consumer Industries Consumer Technology Retail Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Lauriane Camus, Patti Freeman Evans" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54366&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54366 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55700&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55700 Business-to-business (B2B) marketers approach social strategy with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Most want to know which firms execute social pursuits well and what tangible outcomes occur. The B2B Division winners of the 2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards show that high technology product and service providers lead the way in achieving real business results. As social activity expands into different B2B markets — and business people seek out peers online to exchange ideas and validate their purchase plans and decisions — Forrester believes that these examples show how focusing on audience and objectives is key to thriving in a world transformed by social activity. B2B Sales & Marketing Customer Experience Marketing & Advertising High-Tech Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Laura Ramos" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55700&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55700 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55422&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55422 In a recent Forrester survey, almost one-third of consumers reported having a personal health record (PHR) — the vast majority of which are from their health plan. Forrester doesn't believe it. These high adoption levels don't jibe with either past surveys or adoption levels reported by health plans. So what gives? Forrester believes that consumers are confused about what PHRs are and the value they offer — and that customer experience professionals need to help sort them out. To boost consumer engagement with PHRs, health plans must agree on a standard PHR definition, couple PHRs with a value that has immediate and tangible benefit to consumers, and address lingering portability concerns. Customer Experience Healthcare & Life Sciences Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Elizabeth Boehm" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55422&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55422 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=53874&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-53874 Forrester recommends that customer experience professionals use personas founded in ethnographic research to guide the design of products, channels, and messages. However, some organizations struggle to use personas effectively. To overcome common barriers to persona use, customer experience professionals should brainstorm with key stakeholders to create roughly sketched profiles of target customers, called "assumption personas." This exercise helps build the case for creating real personas, gets stakeholders to think about their business goals in customer-centric terms, and generates hypotheses about target customers for testing in subsequent ethnographic research. Customer experience professionals must ensure that assumption personas are viewed as a step toward customer insight rather than an end in themselves. They are valuable tools for kicking off persona projects, but they aren't fit for guiding design decisions. B2B Sales & Marketing Customer Experience Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Jonathan Browne" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=53874&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-53874 http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/service-oriented_analytics_tapping_into_predictive_smarts_of/q/id/6061/t/1 Advanced analytics is a key competitive weapon of companies everywhere. Visionary organizations take a future-facing, analysis-driven perspective on new challenges. They do this by grounding management forecasts in solid historical information sets, leveraging and extending companies' existing investments in data mining and predictive modeling. However, enterprises must be careful not to adhere to the common practice of implementing advanced analytics tools in tactical, application-specific silos. This traditional practice makes it difficult for diverse predictive modeling teams to share their deep domain expertise, best statistical approaches, and most powerful data exploration and visualization features. Information & Knowledge Management Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "James G. Kobielus" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/service-oriented_analytics_tapping_into_predictive_smarts_of/q/id/6061/t/1 http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/changing_telecoms_ecosystems/q/id/6062/t/1 The traditional telecoms supply chain is a simple cascade at its core &mdash enterprises and consumers buy products from telcos based on the technology provided by their suppliers. There are three distinct tiers in this supply chain; but they're changing. Telecommunications Services Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Mike Cansfield" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/changing_telecoms_ecosystems/q/id/6062/t/1 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54972&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54972 Network access control (NAC) is high on the security professionals' wish list, but few are able to justify the business case for it. Complex deployments, too many architectural options, and a quickly changing vendor landscape have pushed most NAC deployments further down the project list. We recently surveyed the NAC vendor landscape and found there are still a lot of vendors, but things are beginning to change. The market segments into four high-level categories: appliance, software, infrastructure, and specialized providers. Of the 18 vendors we spoke with across these categories, all support the basic features — like pre- and post-admission control, automated remediation, and guest access — but the leading vendors are embracing new features that focus on the intersection of security and IT automation. Infrastructure vendors currently lead the market, but appliance and software vendors are quickly gaining momentum based on unique scenarios they can address. Expect NAC to drive your access control strategy and to focus on elements that alleviate operational inefficiency. Networking Packaged Applications Security & Risk Sourcing & Procurement Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Usman Sindhu" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=54972&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-54972 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46498&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-46498 In Forrester's 79-criteria evaluation of identity and access management (IAM) vendors, we found that Oracle, CA, and IBM lead the pack because of a rich IAM portfolio (both organically developed and acquired), an understanding of a rapidly changing market, and a strong and meticulously executed strategy. Novell, Courion, and Sun Microsystems each have powerful suites and strong provisioning and role-management solutions but lack some pieces of the access management stack. Microsoft, SAP, and Hitachi ID Systems lag behind because they cannot provide a full IAM stack. Given that many customers ask about only the provisioning portion of the IAM stack, we also used a subset of the criteria to evaluate this subcomponent. When evaluating these same vendors on their provisioning products, we found that CA, Novell, and Courion showed significant improvement in their current offering; however, Oracle still maintained the top spot for provisioning. Packaged Applications Security & Risk Sourcing & Procurement Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Andras Cser" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=46498&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-46498 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=48390&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-48390 As the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software market struggles against an unprecedented tide of economic woes, strategic opportunities are surfacing for customers. Soft market conditions mean fewer deals for vendors and better deals for buyers of ERP applications. In the long term, forces of change are apparent — market consolidation continues, shaped by customer expectations of deeper industry functionality. New technology is reshaping the product offerings, enriching the user experience, increasing flexibility, and providing better insight. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is starting to gain traction as a viable deployment option in some ERP market segments, riding on the success of best-of-breed customer relationship management (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) applications. The sluggish economy has resulted in an unprecedented decline in license revenues and vendor services, the impact of which will be felt through 2010. Among this turmoil, vendor consolidation will accelerate, leaving large vendors with increased market leverage — and more complicated product portfolios. Business process and applications (BP&A) professionals should use the soft market conditions to their advantage by stabilizing ownership costs and building a leaner and more sustainable applications portfolio. B2B Sales & Marketing IT Services IT Spending & Budgeting Packaged Applications High-Tech Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT "Paul D. Hamerman" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=48390&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-48390 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55707&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55707 Augmented reality has emerged from the shadows in the past six months as fun consumer applications move beyond dedicated Webcam software and academic experiments. The widespread availability of applications for mobile handsets has driven augmented reality applications into the mainstream — popular iPhone applications such as the Layar Reality Browser and the New York Nearest Subway app have set this space alight. But this is only the beginning: As costs plummet and the reachable audience increases, consumer product strategy professionals need to evaluate how augmented reality may fit into their consumer strategy. Customer Experience eBusiness/eCommerce Consumer Technology Media & Entertainment Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT "Paul Jackson" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55707&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55707 http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55455&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55455 A remote site can be as small as a branch office location with five employees or as large as a regional sales office with 50 employees. Regardless of a company's size, end users are creating and storing critical data at these sites. In some industries such as insurance, financial services, and transportation, the remote sites are mission-critical. But too often, the data stored at these remote sites is not backed up and, even if it is, it's backed up to physical tapes that are transported off site unencrypted by an office manager or IT generalist. Remote sites represent operational, financial, and business risk. A poor or nonexistent backup strategy affects revenue and employee productivity, and transporting unencrypted tapes off site is a legal and public relations nightmare just waiting to happen. Sooner or later, someone in the office will lose track of several backup tapes, and someone will find out about it. For this reason, most companies are opting to centralize remote site backup. There are several approaches to consider, but the time has come for IT professionals to select one and move forward before an unfortunate calamity or security incident occurs. IT Infrastructure & Operations IT Services Storage & Data Management Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT "Stephanie Balaouras" <resourcecenter@forrester.com> http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=55455&src=RSS_CustomFeed&cm_mmc=Forrester-_-RSS-_-Document-_-55455