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In the 2008 Key Motivators Business Survey, 93.4% of respondents report that a company’s reputation is “very important” when choosing a vendor or business partner, 65.2% cite references as “very important” and 41.5% say proof of results are “very important.” Conducted by Porter Positioning in April 2008, the survey of US business professionals was completed by 214 people in a variety of industries and professions. Click here for survey details.
Software AG, a global leader in business infrastructure software, recently announced that it was recently recognized as a ‘Market Leader’ for the Application Infrastructure market1 by Current Analysis, a leading independent research firm. Software AG was also ranked as a ‘Market Leader’ in the research firm’s accompanying analysis of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) market2. Only four vendors were identified as ‘Market Leaders’ in both of these sectors.
“Software AG combines global reach and financial strength with a demonstrated commitment to performance, innovation and time-to-benefit. This has allowed us to establish a significant leadership position within the business infrastructure software market, where we serve as the clear, ‘no compromises’ alternative to the status quo,” said David Mitchell, President and Chief Operating Officer of the webMethods business division and member of the Software AG Executive Board. “We are extremely pleased with this most recent recognition for our success and market leadership. Having established aggressive goals for ourselves in 2007, I’m proud to say that we delivered fully upon these objectives. This sets the stage for an even bigger and better 2008.”
Current Analysis defines the Application Infrastructure market as covering “…technologies which provide the infrastructure necessary to build and run an enterprise application. Often called ‘middleware,’ it includes not only run time environments, but also integration technologies that allow an application to communicate and exchange information with back-end systems. It also includes technologies used to generate user interfaces to applications built upon this middleware. This market focuses primarily on three distinct yet often overlapping markets, service-oriented architecture, integration software and services as well as application and data delivery. These segments fully encompass the software and professional services necessary to integrate disparate systems, create cross-business and cross technology communications, deliver rich, internet-based applications and build software that is highly visible, optimized and reusable.”
In their assessment of the overall Application Infrastructure sector, Current Analysis identified Software AG as one of five overall ‘Market Leaders’. Furthermore, Software AG earned the highest possible ‘Positive’ grade for its overall ‘Market Position’, ‘Vision’ and ‘Momentum’. In terms of maturity, Current Analyst classified Software AG as an ‘Established’ vendor operating within the industry’s ‘1st Tier’ of providers.
Software AG was also ranked as a ‘Market Leader’ in Current Analysis’ assessment of the SOA market, one of three underlying components of the Application Infrastructure market. In this analysis, Software AG received the top grade of ‘Positive’ for its overall ‘Market Position’, ‘Vision’ and ‘Momentum’. Software AG was also classified as an ‘Established’ vendor in terms of overall maturity and was viewed to be amongst the industry’s ‘1st Tier’ of providers.
Software AG also earned ‘Positive’ rankings for its ‘Market Position’ within the Application and Data Delivery3, and B2B Integration Software and Services4 sectors. Within both of these markets, Software AG was ranked as an ‘Established’ vendor in terms of maturity.
The report is available in its entirety on the QUMAS website by clicking here.
Effective performance management initiatives enable workers to execute scientifically-generated success strategies in a consistent manner across entire organizations. Companies that have excelled at performance management are more likely to enjoy an enhanced understanding of their customers and their marketing initiatives, leading to better products and services and increased profitability.
As part of the extensive research program, the eight articles at this link identified key points that companies must understand to overcome the obstacles and exploit the opportunities offered by an ideal performance management environment.
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Business intelligence (BI) sits at the top of the IT priority list for many enterprises. Enterprises that haven’t paid enough attention now see a need to act, and those that have kept up with BI want to consolidate their siloed implementations. The promises of BI attract any organization, but how do you get started? Enterprises face multidimensional choices, and they cannot start with vendor selection. Tasks like data governance, matching requirements with logical architectures, and picking an experienced architect and implementer should be at the top of the list.
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Forrester evaluated leading SOA consulting and integration services providers across 50 criteria and found that IBM and Accenture have established early leadership thanks to their strong technical capabilities and clear focus on business outcomes. BearingPoint and Infosys are Strong Performers. Although constrained by their smaller size or lack of business focus, their offerings are competitive and both have good client references. A number of emerging providers that are currently developing SOA capabilities will provide more competition to the existing market leaders and strong performers over the next few years. Included in this report is an interactive provider comparison tool that includes detailed evaluations and customizable rankings.
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Like it or not, Social Computing is coming to the life sciences industry. If you don't believe us, check out the YouTube video of a purported Eli Lilly sales rep dishing ZYPREXA's side effects or read the passionate consumer comments on GlaxoSmithKline's AlliConnect blog. Harnessing social media promises big benefits like improving consumer trust in brands, but it also brings formidable risks like adverse event reporting complexity driven by consumer comments in forums and blogs. To navigate the unknown waters of social media safely, life sciences firms must take four steps: 1) educate executives and legal; 2) identify internal innovators and existing learning; 3) build a task force; and 4) anticipate organizational change and internal resource demands to arrive at a sensible strategy.
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Consumers rate good customer service as one of the top three purchase decision criteria when choosing an operator. Forrester applied its Cross-Channel Review methodology to four leading mobile operators in Europe — O2, Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodafone — to evaluate their services across channels. We found that the customer experiences they offer across channels have many flaws, but they also demonstrate some best practices. To get better — and improve their profitability — firms should investigate the desired paths to purchase of their target audience and turn this information into a seamless cross-channel experience.
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As part of an analysis of 16 firms, Forrester evaluated the customer experiences delivered by four large consumer electronics retailers — Best Buy, Circuit City, RadioShack, and Wal-Mart. Overall, the retailers ended up with the highest average score compared with other industries, but the firms still delivered poor experiences in IVR systems, email, and channel transitions. But while each of the electronics retailers suffered from a different set of problems, our analysis also uncovered a number of good practices, such as Circuit City's product recommendation tool and RadioShack's phone agents who proactively directed users to Web self-service.
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Firms spend millions of euros on building their brand through advertising, site design, and online branding. Our heuristic evaluation of 16 large brands in the UK, however, reveals that only one brand creates a consistent experience across different media with a useful and usable Web site. Customer experience professionals must get basic site usability principles right before trying to differentiate through the online experience.
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