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.
The Ultra-Connected Customer Will Upturn Marketing
In 2013, the ultra-connected customer base will grow at a staggering pace, destabilizing marketing as you've come to know it. This report identifies the changes you'll see in your customers'...
Targeting Your Social Media Marketing Programs By Country And Language
The groundswell has gone global: The majority of users on sites like Facebook and Twitter now come from outside the US, and if your social media content reaches the wrong audience, you risk...

The Rise Of The Joiners And The Conversationalists
Social media adoption in Europe continues to grow: 68% of online Europeans now use social technologies each month, up from 61% in 2009. Not only has the use of social networks grown significantly in...
Strategies For Connecting With Increasingly Overwhelmed Audiences
As consumers' use of social media matures, a new challenge faces marketers: connecting with their target audiences in increasingly cluttered social platforms. Many interactive marketers are falling...
Put Interactive Marketing At The Heart Of Your Branding Campaigns
Your customers have entered an era of interactivity; it's time for your branding campaigns to catch up. Rather than continue to develop your brand in 30-second snippets and hope you can build a...
How To Navigate The Regulatory Minefield And Build Effective Social Media Programs
Financial services firms are beginning to adopt social technologies: In fact, we found that 79% of companies in the industry have some social media presence. But, held back by regulatory concerns and...
Benchmarks: The Social Marketing Playbook
Despite the tremendous hype and even some pockets of success, our most recent social media benchmarking survey shows that social marketing is still at an early stage. In fact, most interactive...

Communicating The Right Data To Different Internal Stakeholders
Social media contributes value to interactive marketing programs in many ways — but measuring that value is difficult. The sheer volume of social media metrics can quickly become overwhelming...

Vision: The Social Marketing Playbook
You already know your audience uses social media; one minute they're planning vacations on Twitter and the next they're toppling governments with the help of Facebook. And because your customers use...

Tools And Technology: The Social Marketing Playbook
This report outlines how interactive marketers can choose the right tools and partners for their social marketing programs. As an interactive marketer, you need to use new social technologies —...

And The One Way They Shouldn't
Every year social media users around the world post hundreds of billions of pieces of social content about the products and services marketed to them. But few marketers track this data, and even...
The 2010 Viral Video WebTrack And Consumer Survey
More people are watching online video than ever before, and most share their favorite videos with their friends — but that doesn't mean creating a successful viral video is getting any easier....
The Eight Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
In Forrester's 49-criteria evaluation of social relationship platform (SRP) vendors, we identified the eight most significant vendors — Adobe, Hearsay Social, salesforce.com's Buddy Media,...
Use Mobile Sites And Banners, Not Apps, To Reach The Largest Audience
While European marketers are excited to use mobile tools, few have made mobile a key part of their interactive marketing strategy. In fact, most still aren't using mobile marketing today — and...
How To Construct And Prove Proxies When You Can't Collect Traditional Metrics
Marketers are no good at measuring their social media programs: Most don't even try to collect metrics that match their objectives and as a result they're forced to use measurement proxies that are...
How And Where To Tap Into China's Hypersocial Online Population
Chinese online adults are among the most socially active we survey anywhere in the world — so if you're aiming to reach Chinese audiences you'd be wise to invest in social media. But this...

Overcome Your Digital Challenges By Finding, Training, And Keeping Talented Staff
China's 1.4 billion residents have more disposable income than they used to, and digital channels offer undoubtedly the best way to reach affluent Chinese consumers. But interactive marketing in...

Using Facebook Login To Your Advantage
This report, originally written for eBusiness and channel strategy professionals, contains important insight and recommendations for interactive marketing professionals as well. Since the...

The 2010 European Peer Influence Analysis Report
While most marketers struggle to generate reach through their social media marketing programs, a handful have unlocked the secret to finding large audiences: Mass Influencers. Our Peer Influence...
Stakeholder Map: The Social Marketing Playbook
Most large companies are now working on coordinating their social applications. At this stage, sharing the right resources is the biggest challenge. Interactive marketers must play the role of...

Marketers Move Toward Multichannel Planning And Execution
Interactive marketers are working hard to keep up with the evolving landscape of channels, tools, and technologies at their disposal for 2011 budget planning. Seventy percent of marketers expect...
Business Case: The Social Marketing Playbook
The demand has never been greater for marketers to validate and measure the benefits delivered by their increasing investment in social media. Marketers often frame this question as, "What is the ROI...

Marketers Must Start Paying Attention And Stop Buying Bad Inventory
The more online video advertising matures, the more it resembles TV advertising. But if marketers aren't careful, the inventory they're buying can look like overnight rather than prime time. Too many...
Performance Management: The Social Marketing Playbook
You've no doubt heard the question: "How do we know that social marketing drives sales?" But just as not all TV spots or billboards are intended to drive direct response, not every social marketing...
Executive Overview: The Social Marketing Playbook
For the interactive marketer, social is both a huge opportunity and daunting challenge. You know you can reach your customers on social channels, but the environment is foreign— it's highly...
