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

Rob serves CIO Professionals with research in the areas of information workplace and collaboration strategy. Rob delivers strategic guidance, helping enterprises define enterprise solutions that drive efficiency and competitive differentiation. His current research focuses on core elements of collaboration strategy, including collaboration platforms, workspaces, and enterprise social strategy.
Rob comes to Forrester with many years of experience in enterprise software consulting, product marketing, product management, and strategy. Most recently, he was director of product management at Microsoft, where he played a strategic role with Duet, a joint initiative brought to market with SAP. Prior to Microsoft, Rob was a senior director of product marketing at Oracle Corporation, where he focused on Oracle's content, collaboration, portal, and business intelligence offerings. He also spent fifteen years in consulting working for Lotus/IBM and other global software services firms with a focus on corporate collaboration.
Rob holds a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Davis.
Did the word ‘free’ prompt you to read this post :-) ? Stephen Mann’s post a couple of weeks ago on ‘Giving Back To The IT Service Management Community’...
As we move toward 2012, I can guarantee that many I&O leaders will have reviewed/defined what their strategy priorities are for the coming year, 3 years and maybe 5 years are. Hands up though: Who...
My colleague David Johnson wrote a good blog earlier in the week on ‘Your Best Chance for Long-Term Employability as an I&O Professional’in which he discussed the key areas that I&O...

Forrester's Service Management And Automation Assessment Framework consists of four SMA domains (oversight, technology, process, and people) and 26 SMA functions. This abbreviated version of the...
Firstly, let me explain: I am not really a fan of Dolly Parton but I heard this song last night and this got me thinking further about my I&O FLB exclusive report on ‘Tomorrow’s I&O...
Another year and Citrix’s acquisition strategy of interesting companies continues as they have announced the purchase of EMS-Cortex. This acquisition has caught my eye because EMS-Cortex...
Hi, Last week I took part in a podcast focusing on the "Future of the Service Desk." Unsurprisingly, this is a hot topic at Forrester for the I&O role. The standard equation for measuring service...
What is Forrester's point of view on service desk organization? What are the various types of organization for help desk services? Is "direct phone call to support analyst" a must, or does Forrester...
Executive Overview: The Service Management And Automation Playbook
Your business cares about outcomes, not technologies. Thus, it isn't enough to empower your developers and workers with the latest cloud, mobile, and analytics technologies. You must also invest in...

Road Map: The Service Management And Automation Playbook
This report outlines Forrester's solution to help IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders develop their road map of service management and automation processes (SMA) using Forrester's...

The news this week in the UK has been awash with articles in relation to the potential problems that the Olympics 2012 could bring with reports of transport chaos, security rehearsals happening...
As well as an adaptation of a festive song this could be one of the guiding jingles for ServiceNow. This week I have been attending, along with my colleague Stephen Mann, the...
Organization: The I&O Practice Playbook
The use of as-a-service technology, empowered workers, and customer centricity will forever change the IT-business relationship. Forrester expects that successful CIOs will pursue a new operating...

Assessment Framework: The Service Management And Automation Playbook
This report introduces Forrester's solution for IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders to assess the maturity of their service management and automation (SMA) program. This is important,...
One of the best TV comedies in the UK over the last couple of years has been The IT Crowd. It is about a fictional IT department and plays to all the possible IT stereotypes. One of my favorite...
A Blueprint On How To Transform People, Process, And Technology Elements To Proactively Address Increasingly Complex Markets
In 2010, Sanofi, a large multinational in the healthcare market, embarked on a business transformation in response to increasing market complexity. Similar market complexities are affecting most...

Operational management tools have been used for well over a decade, but assembling them is like assembling a jumble of jigsaw puzzle pieces, and the value of these tools remains ambiguous. Much of...
This week I have been travelling to see Forrester’s I&O Leadership Board (FLB) members in Paris and working on my I&O FLB workshop session for Orlando and London happening in October, titled...
“If you are in the tech business, you need to be willing and able to change” This statement was made by Michael P Gregoire, CA Technologies’ (CA) new CEO and it pretty much summed...
The word 'transformation' is probably one of the most overused words in business and IT. I put my hands up and confess that in the past, as an enterprise management consultant, I have tagged...
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending Dell’s Technology Camp in Amsterdam. It was a full on day starting at 7.30am and I finally got back home at 11pm but it was a fascinating event....
Landscape: The I&O Practice Playbook
Transformation — it is top of mind for IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) executives in 2013. While the final destination holds promise, the journey there is fraught with fear, uncertainty,...

The operational hub of any well-run and complex organization is a strong operations center. In IT infrastructure and operations (I&O), this function is often fragmented into pockets that tend to be...
0cm">This post is based on my new report 'Reinvent The Role Of Infrastructure And Operations Executive In 2013’ In 1898 there was the first international urban planning...
I bet you are thinking, “Oh no, this looks like a typical Friday IT blog post” and it has all the key ingredients – It’s Friday-tick-has science fiction references-tick-has...