For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Extending Online Customer Service To The Mobile Channel

by Diane Clarkson, September 9, 2010

eBusiness decisions to employ mobile commerce, apps, and self-service features have garnered the lion's share of mobile strategy. But what happens when users need customer service from within a mobile Web site or app? Those customers need immediate and . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

Designing A Mobile Empowered Product Strategy

An Empowered Report: Applying The IDEA Framework To Smartphone Users

by J.P. Gownder, September 7, 2010

Product strategists developing mobile offerings should take inspiration from Forrester's new book Empowered. When designing a mobile product strategy, they should employ a mobile version of the IDEA framework: Identify Mobile Mass Influencers, deliver . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Empower Customers And iWorkers With On-Demand Customer Communications

by Craig Le Clair, September 2, 2010

Too many enterprises communicate with customers using antiquated approaches. After all, smart devices, pervasive video, and social media have given new power to customers and citizens — allowing them to interact easily with customer service agents, pass . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Ten Considerations For Voice Portal Upgrades

Develop Your Priorities Before Making An IVR Vendor Selection

by Elizabeth Herrell, September 1, 2010

Infrastructure decision-makers who plan to upgrade their interactive voice response (IVR) system should consider changes in customers' expectations, technology improvements, and cost models before launching vendor evaluations for voice portal (VP) upgrades. . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Benchmarks For CRM Selection And Deployment

Size Up Your CRM Initiative Compared Against 99 Projects

by William Band, August 26, 2010

How does your customer relationship management (CRM) project compare with those at other organizations? Forrester surveyed 99 organizations that are using one of 19 leading CRM suite solutions to understand their CRM solution purchase patterns, buying . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Market Overview: Smartphone Management

Empower Workers With The Freedom To Choose Their Preferred Mobile Devices

by Benjamin Gray, Christian Kane, August 26, 2010

Within the next 12 to 18 months, most IT managers worldwide will significantly alter their client computing strategies, and this will have a profound impact on smartphone adoption and management. Necessitating this change is a significant generational . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Compliance With Clouds: Caveat Emptor

by Chenxi Wang, Ph.D., August 26, 2010

Today's organizations face aggressive cost-cutting and efficiency pressures that drive businesses to consider cloud sourcing solutions. While the many properties of cloud services, such as elasticity, low entry costs, and faster time-to-market, are well . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Market Overview: Fraud Management Solutions

Seven Tenets Of Effectively Combating Fraud Costs

by Andras Cser, August 25, 2010

Fraud causes companies to lose money in many ways: They face losses due to chargebacks, unrecoverable transfers, and unnecessary shipping costs; and spend extensive time and resources investigating many transactions. Fraud can impact a company's goodwill. . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

How Canadian Insurance Customers Use Different Channels

by Ellen Carney, Peter Wannemacher, August 24, 2010

Canadians still use the phone as their primary channel for insurance. In fact, the phone was the only channel used by a majority of online Canadian insurance customers in the past year, while fewer than one in three customers used an insurer's Web site . . .

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Define Your Mobile Development Strategy

Use Forrester's Mobile POST Method To Create A Mobile Development Plan

by Jeffrey S. Hammond, August 24, 2010

Developing mobile applications used to be an arcane activity pursued by highly specialized developers, but no more. The surge in popularity of Android devices, BlackBerries, and iPhones has application development professionals gearing up to incorporate . . .

For Business Process Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Business Process Management Suites, Q3 2010

Pegasystems, Appian, IBM, and Software AG Lead The Pack

by Clay Richardson, August 24, 2010

Forrester evaluated 11 leading business process management (BPM) suite vendors against 148 criteria reflecting the requirements of business process professionals running large-scale BPM programs. We found that Pegasystems and Appian lead the pack with . . .

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Global Banking Platform Deals 2009: Regions And Functionality

A Cold Breeze And Only One Hot Region Characterize The 2009 Market

by Jost Hoppermann, August 19, 2010

Forrester surveyed 17 vendors of globally deployed banking platforms on their 2009 deals. The regional analysis shows that Asia Pacific has been the single highly active region. Most of the remaining regions of the world show different levels of mediocre . . .

For Business Process Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Order Management Hubs, Q3 2010

Oracle EBS And Sterling Commerce Lead, With SAP, Oracle Siebel, And Microsoft Close Behind

by Roy C. Wildeman, Craig Le Clair, August 19, 2010

In Forrester's 112-criteria evaluation of order management hub (OMH) vendors, Oracle E-Business Suite and Sterling Commerce led the pack among the Leaders because of their ability to support both end-to-end ordering processes as well as order hub infrastructure. . . .

For Content & Collaboration Professionals

The Next Wave Of Office Productivity

Mobile, Cloud, And Collaboration Are Leading The Transformation

by Sheri McLeish, August 16, 2010

Microsoft Office remains a mainstay in workplaces. Despite media buzz about online alternatives like Google Apps Premier Edition or pragmatic arguments about free Open Office suites, most enterprises have long-terms plans to continue their Microsoft Office . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Online Testing, Q3 2010

Adobe And Autonomy Lead A Pack Of Strong Performers

by Joe Stanhope, August 13, 2010

In Forrester's inaugural evaluation of online testing vendors, we researched eight companies across 82 criteria. We found that Adobe and Autonomy lead the pack because of their consistent strength across the full range of capabilities and their support . . .

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Database Tools Fill Gaps In Vendors' Bundled Tools

DBAs Gain Advanced Yet Usable Features For Heterogeneous DBMS

by Noel Yuhanna, August 12, 2010

Vendors continue adding new and improved database administration features to their database management systems (DBMS) to automate more functions, yet enterprises with large and complex environments still struggle, especially with security, availability, . . .

For Business Process Professionals

How Business Process Pros Can Increase IT's Business Process Orientation

Six Steps Process Professionals And IT Need To Perform In Collaboration

by Connie Moore, Alexander Peters, Ph.D., August 12, 2010

Business process professionals (BPPs) often complain about IT's ability to support them in delivering the performance optimization they are expected to provide together. The problem seems rooted in IT's traditional position as a supplier of infrastructure . . .

For Business Process Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Open Source Business Intelligence (BI), Q3 2010

Actuate BIRT Leads, With Jaspersoft Enterprise, SpagoBI, Pentaho Enterprise, And Pentaho Community Close Behind

by Jeffrey S. Hammond, Boris Evelson, August 10, 2010

Comparing open source BI technologies is often an apples-to-oranges comparison: 1) not all vendors include the same functionality in the free community versions of the software versus commercial open source versions that carry license and/or support cost, . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Demand Insights: The SMB Software Market 2010

Small And Medium-Size Businesses Are Defying Gravity

by Tim Harmon, August 9, 2010

Small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), like their enterprise brethren, are shifting their technology focus from IT to business technology (BT). As their focus on business solutions — as opposed to technology products — continues to grow, SMBs are now . . .

For CIOs

Learning From IT Satisfaction Surveys

Measure Expectations As Well As Satisfaction

by Chip Gliedman, August 3, 2010

Although spending on IT may be up a bit from past years, there is by no means any money to waste. CIOs must carefully prioritize initiatives and allocate scarce monetary and human resources to support business growth. A survey of internal customers across . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

How Satisfied Are US Consumers With Online Chat?

by Adele Sage, August 3, 2010

Companies are increasingly offering online chat as an interaction channel for customers and prospects. But how successful are those interactions? Of the 18% of consumers who have used chat, most are initiating the interactions themselves, rather than . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

SVM Is Uniquely Positioned To Connect Innovation Leadership To Innovation Services

by Chris Andrews, August 3, 2010

Amid the ups and downs of the global economy, the interest in innovation among senior business leadership has only increased. Most CEOs recognize that in a business environment characterized by higher levels of uncertainty and risk, the ability to generate . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

A Market Taxonomy For ICT

Forrester's Definitions For Tech Product Categories, Industries, And Geographies

by Andrew Bartels, August 2, 2010

Forrester is expanding the breadth and depth of data that we provide to vendor strategists on the size and growth trends of the market for information and communications technology (ICT) solutions. Our goal is to provide data for vendors on the ICT market . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Organizing Apps Maintenance Work For Outcomes

Preparing To Reorganize Work Is Key To The Effort

by Bill Martorelli, August 2, 2010

Many customers that are seeking the next threshold of value are interested in gaining the benefits of managed outcome relationships but are still struggling to execute the transition. Why? Transitioning to managed outcomes is more than merely adjusting . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Your Journey To Lean: Continuous Improvement Supported By Tools

Wipro's Case Study Shows The Way

by Alexander Peters, Ph.D., August 2, 2010

Forrester interviewed the executives responsible for the deployment of the Lean continuous improvement initiative at Wipro Technologies, a global supplier of technology services. The case study shows that Lean can become an important differentiator for . . .