For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

2012 Top 10 IaaS Cloud Predictions For I&O Leaders

Road Map: As Cloud Enters Adolescence, Prepare For Monkeys And Stunts

by James Staten, Lauren E Nelson, February 3, 2012

Early in 2011, Forrester made a series of predictions about the future of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud for that year. With 2012 now upon us, it's time to evaluate last year's predictions and introduce new prognostications. In 2012, Forrester . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

The Customer Experience Index, 2012

Consumers Rate The Customer Experience Across 160 Large US Brands

by Megan Burns, January 23, 2012

To assess the state of customer experience in 2012, Forrester asked more than 7,600 US consumers about their interactions with a variety of companies. Based on their responses, we calculated Customer Experience Index scores for 160 brands across 13 industries. . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

SAP In The Cloud: Market Update And Lessons Learned From Early Adopters

by Liz Herbert, December 8, 2011

The cloud continues to get a lot of attention — and scrutiny — from IT buyers. Most IT buyers have accepted the value of the cloud for process areas such as human capital management and customer relationship management (CRM), but many wonder (and doubt) . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Mobile Healthcare's Slow Adoption Curve

Health Insurance eBusiness Professionals Must Press On Despite Low Demand

by Elizabeth Boehm, November 22, 2011

Health insurance eBusiness professionals have entered the mobile fray. Apps and mobile sites span the administrative and the health and wellness spectrum, but US online commercially insured consumers remain largely apathetic. Nevertheless, health insurance . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

M2M Connectivity Helps Telcos Offset Declining Traditional Services

But They Are Poorly Positioned For The Larger Value-Added Service Opportunity

by Michele Pelino, November 22, 2011

Telcos face increasing pressure on traditional voice revenues and seek new revenues from services leveraging existing assets. Machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies, including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, ZigBee sensors, and actuators, have . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Case Study: Sybron Dental Tackles Sales Productivity Improvement With Mobile CRM

by William Band, November 18, 2011

How do you leverage a treasure trove of end customer data when it suddenly comes available? Sybron Dental, a dental supplies company, faced this scenario when it struck a deal with its distributors to make end user sales data available directly to the . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

US Interactive Marketing Forecast By Industry, 2011 To 2016

by Shar VanBoskirk, November 15, 2011

Forrester forecasts interactive marketing spend to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17%. But not all industries will invest in interactive at the same pace. Financial services will spend the most, but automotive and consumer goods will see the . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Australia, China, And India Set The Pace In Asian IT Services

Individual Country Dynamics Drive Growth And Industry Maturity

by Frederic Giron, John C. McCarthy, October 28, 2011

Different factors will drive the growth of the IT services and outsourcing industries in Australia, China, and India. In Australia, as-a-service offerings, mobile application development, and mobile process reinvention will represent more than 50% of . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

Brand Loyalty Isn't Enough For Products Anymore

Product Strategists Must Build Total Product Experiences To Combat Consumers' Declining Brand Loyalty

by J.P. Gownder, October 4, 2011

Brand loyalty has long been a critical pillar of product strategy, but its power is in relative decline. Technology and a recessionary economy have threatened the value of brand loyalty, especially in the past five years. While brand still matters, it's . . .

For Content & Collaboration Professionals

SharePoint Adoption: Content And Collaboration Is Just The Start

Driving A SharePoint-Based Information Workplace Will Challenge C&C Pros

by Rob Koplowitz, John R. Rymer, September 30, 2011

Microsoft SharePoint is poised for broader adoption as an Information Workplace platform. While most use it for content and collaboration (C&C) needs today, the platform's broad, integrated capabilities make it a contender to replace or augment other . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

The Health Insurance Customer Experience Professional's Guide To Healthcare Reform

What US Consumers Expect From Reform And How To Respond

by Elizabeth Boehm, September 23, 2011

US online consumers are confused about health reform — and it's no wonder given the volatile political rhetoric surrounding one of the Obama administration's most controversial acts. Overall, consumers expect reform to increase the cost and reduce the . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Business Process Initiatives Focus On Customer Experience And Cost Reduction

by Alexander Peters, Ph.D., Derek Miers, September 22, 2011

These data charts are based on the Q2 2011 Global Forrester/IQPC Business Process Maturity Online Survey.

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

Information Architecture Deliverables: What Matters Most?

Five Artifacts Underpin An Effective Program

by Gene Leganza, September 21, 2011

Architects in any domain have no time to waste creating deliverables that wind up collecting dust on a shelf. Information architects, who have historically had a particularly difficult time engaging the business, need to focus their artifact development . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Virtualization In Greater China 2010 To 2011: End User Adoption Trends

by Michael Barnes, September 15, 2011

This report provides an overview of virtualization end user adoption trends in Greater China. It focuses not only on adoption trends but also on deployment patterns, demand drivers, adoption barriers, and overall virtualization patterns across desktops, . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Forrester Research Interactive Marketing Forecast By Industry, 2011 To 2016 (US)

ForecastView Spreadsheet

by Niki Scevak, September 2, 2011

Interactive marketing spending segmented by industries. Each industry's IM spending is further broken into the various components of IM: display, paid search, SEO, email, and mobile advertising.

For Business Process Professionals

Focus On Customers And Business Architecture For Greater Business Process Maturity

Results From The Forrester/IQPC Survey Of Business Process Pros

by Derek Miers, Alexander Peters, Ph.D., August 30, 2011

Over the past decade, business process transformation and continuous improvement initiatives have gained strategic traction. Despite C-suite attention, most organizations still fall relatively low on the business process change maturity curve. Fifty-three . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Health Insurers Still Struggle To Deliver Positive Multichannel Customer Experiences

Why Insurers Need To Raise Their Customer Experience Game

by Elizabeth Boehm, August 15, 2011

In a world of proliferating communication and service channels, health insurers are increasingly adding new touchpoints in efforts to satisfy customers and complement existing channels. But consumers say that these new information avenues are not delivering . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Case Study: Aetna Drives Consumer Engagement Through Its Member Cost Estimator Tool

by Elizabeth Boehm, July 26, 2011

As health insurance plans get more complex and members' responsibility rises, insurers struggle to meet members' needs for accurate plan- and member-specific cost estimates for medical services. In 2010, Aetna introduced its Member Cost Estimator, an . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Case Study: How Merck Cut Costs And Improved Value By Investing In Vendor Management

by Lutz Peichert, July 25, 2011

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, Q2 2010, 44% of respondents agreed that business leaders . . .

For Technology Marketing Professionals

2011 Social Technographics® For Business Technology Buyers

Technology Marketers Must Prepare For The Coming Storm

by Kim Celestre, July 18, 2011

Data from Forrester's Q1 2011 US and European B2B Social Technographics® Online Survey For Business Technology Buyers indicates that both social media habits and the role social media is playing in business technology decision-making continue to evolve. . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

What CEOs Of Small Software Companies Need To Do In 2011

How To Find The Best Opportunities In A High-Growth Market

by Andrew Bartels, July 7, 2011

The software market is poised to enjoy its best growth in a decade, and small software companies face great growth opportunities as their larger competitors struggle to adapt to a new world of cloud computing and Smart Computing. To succeed, small software . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

The Business Impact Of Customer Experience, 2011

Improvements Can Add More Than $1 Billion In Revenue For Wireless Carriers And Hotels

by Megan Burns, July 7, 2011

Customer experience professionals must clearly articulate the business benefits of improving customer experience. Years of Forrester data confirm the strong relationship between the quality of a firm's customer experience (as measured by Forrester's Customer . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Health Payers Search High And Low For Their Business Transformation Edge

Answering Hard Questions About Business, Process, And Technology Best Practices

by Craig Le Clair, Clay Richardson, June 24, 2011

Business process pros at health payers work at the intersection of business and technology, bringing process methodologies, business knowledge, and technology insights to business transformation initiatives. Finding the right balance of process discipline, . . .

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

Updated Q2 2011: Simplifying Information Architecture

Creating An IA Program That Works

by Gene Leganza, June 23, 2011

It has been more than five years since Forrester first published this report outlining a simple approach to information architecture, but this domain of enterprise architecture (EA) has matured little in that time. All too often an enterprise's information . . .

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

2011 Integration Survey, Part One: Solution Deployments

ESBs Are The Most Popular Choice

by Ken Vollmer, June 21, 2011

Enterprise service buses (ESBs), comprehensive integration solutions (CISes), and integration appliances offer a range of overlapping features to meet integration challenges. Forrester recently surveyed 167 client firms to determine how they are using . . .