Media Alert

Companies are constantly gathering data — but no one has perfected the insights-driven action that should be the output of data collection. Big data is, in many instances, exacerbating the situation for companies that are failing to execute on the data they already have on hand. One global bank summarized the challenge Forrester is seeing [...]

US online retail sales will reach $334 billion this year and will grow to $480 billion by 2019, according to Forrester’s latest five-year eCommerce forecast. Already, 69% of the US online population regularly buys products online, with clothing, consumer electronics, and computers generating about a third of all online shopping dollars in the US. Categories [...]

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) interest is decreasing, particularly in government, according to recent Forrester data. Forty percent of government technology decision-makers said BYOD is not on their tech agenda and another 30% responded that it’s a low priority.  One reason stands out: Despite all the noise around BYOD, there is little demand from the government workforce. Government [...]

Programmatic ad trading is set for high growth in 2015 and will fundamentally change the way advertisers and publishers buy and sell display advertising across all of Europe, according to a new Forrester report. But there’s a catch: Despite the hype around the new protocol for trading native ads through real-time bidding (RTB) mechanisms, the research [...]

Improving the customer experience is a strategic priority for 73% of businesses, yet only 1% of companies deliver an excellent customer experience, according to the 2015 Forrester Research Customer Experience Index. Based on a survey of 46,000 consumers, the CX Index™ measured and ranked approximately 300 large US brands, across 17 industries, on the quality [...]

Today, Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) honored five Forrester Groundswell Award winners for excellence in social marketing. The winners were announced at Forrester’s Forum For Marketing Leaders in New York. The ninth annual Forrester Groundswell Awards support and recognize the principles outlined in the Forrester books Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies [...]

Salesforce has experienced stunning financial growth, but to rise to the level of IBM, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft, the company will need to make changes to its pricing model to meet the promise it has made to investors. According to a new Forrester report, Salesforce will need to increase deal sizes, push into new product [...]

Forrester forecasts 1 million US B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service eCommerce by 2020, accounting for 20% of the B2B sales force. B2B buyers are living in a 2015 digital-first world, but B2B sellers are still living in a 1965 salesman-first world. New Forrester data shows that nearly 75% of B2B buyers prefer [...]

It’s a bloodbath out there in retailing, and for many a slow and steady death is on the horizon, contends Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru in a new study on the future of shopping. Using labor statistics and census data dating back 40 years, Mulpuru proves that retailers have wasted time and money concerning themselves with [...]

Marketers plan to increase overall budgets by 4% this year, with nearly half prioritizing an increase in digital budgets, according to a new Forrester survey of 89 B2C marketing leaders. Conversely, just 12% of marketers plan to increase traditional marketing spend this year. Additional budget findings from this new research include: 25% of marketers plan [...]

UK consumers use different technologies and channels in each stage of their journey toward a purchase decision, according to a new Forrester report based on a survey of more than 1,500 respondents.  For example, when consumers discover a product, offline channels still rule in the UK. TV is the single most effective channel to build brand awareness, [...]

B2B eCommerce sales will top $1 trillion by 2020 and account for 12% of all B2B sales, according to Forrester’s first-ever five-year B2B eCommerce forecast. This represents an 8% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, with B2B sales reaching $780 billion by the end of this year. What’s driving this incredible growth? [...]

Less than one-third of non-US companies have moved their data away from US-based partners, suggesting that the impact PRISM had on the cloud market has been overblown to date. A new forecast of the financial loss to US vendors reveals that initial forecasts were high. Our analysis of the pullback in non-US enterprise spending on US-based [...]

Seventy-five percent of customers already prefer that retailers use personal data they gather to improve shopping experiences — so why not rise to the challenge? With the right customer data, firms can build relevant, differentiated experiences and close the gap between a customer’s problem and solution, writes Forrester in new research. Some marketers are already [...]

CIOs must manage business outcomes, like customer retention and advocacy, to meet BT’s resource needs, writes Forrester in new research. As CIOs undertake business technology (BT) agendas to win, serve, and retain customers, they struggle to govern their resources appropriately. The traditional IT approach of locking resources annually to extended initiatives is no match for [...]

What’s a reasonable number of apps for a brand to offer its customer base? Fewer than three is the norm for nearly half of the digital business pros recently surveyed by Forrester. But an astonishing 9% say their firm offers more than 21 apps to the market. More is not always better, writes Forrester in [...]

European insurance companies must experiment with emerging digital technologies to win new customer segments and to take market share from competitors, according to a new Forrester report. To meet this challenge, EU insurers should follow the example of leaders like Allianz, AXA, and BNP Paribas Cardif that are partnering with digital labs and incubators on [...]

With the launch of Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, the robo-advisor market moves one step closer to mainstream adoption — changing investor expectations about where the best advice comes from, what it should cost, and how it’s best delivered, writes Forrester in new research. Schwab recognized the need to disrupt its business model before another digital upstart [...]

The role of the chief customer officer (CCO) was established to solve the type of challenges that exist at major federal agencies, and every major agency should have one, according to Forrester. Even smaller agencies — particularly those with demanding customers — should strongly consider a CCO because that customer base demands a highly curated [...]