Tag: forrester

Brexit rules prevent the UK from being a leading tech skill cluster

Posted on April 26, 2022 by - News

Beancounters at Forrester found that post-Brexit regulatory red tape prevents UK-based cities from being ranked as a top skill cluster in Europe.

The top 10 metropolitan areas with the best skills and talent clusters across Europe are Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, and Amsterdam.

Forrester said that these metropolitan areas are globally integrated, home to innovative businesses, and have a digitally advanced infrastructure to attract and accommodate the concentration of skills and talents of the future.

However, London, which is often known as Europe’s tech hub, was ranked 19th due to stringent immigration rules post-Brexit. Forrester noted that post-Brexit, the labour movement in the UK is restricted, resulting in London, Manchester, and Birmingham sliding in rankings.

Channel resembles a dodo – report

Posted on December 6, 2021 by - News

Forrester’s principal analyst, Jay McBain believes only a third of money in the tech industry will flow through the channel by the end of the decade.

He warned that technology companies the rise in marketplaces and direct selling meant less would flow through the channel. McBain said that buyers of technology were changing, telling partners that future buyers “look a lot like consumers” and that it is no longer just those involved in IT that companies are selling to, with marketing and sales now having a greater influence on the market.

IT budgets hammered by COVID-19

Posted on November 6, 2020 by - News

People will have to learn to do “more with less” next year as COVID-19 weighs heavy on their IT budgets, according to a new report from analyst outfit Forrester.

Forrester VP and principal analyst Thomas Husson claims that end users will want to invest in technology next year to help them endure the COVID-19 crisis, but lack the budgets.

He thinks that this will put more pressure on IT suppliers.

“Companies will have to do more with less meaning they will have to make some cuts and reprioritise some of their investments. And clearly, we see what is happening is that they are more demanding than ever”, Husson said.

“Into next year they are likely to feel more frustrated because they will have to deal with lower purchasing power, and some of them will unfortunately face unemployment.

Nearly every company experienced a cyber attack last year

Posted on August 14, 2020 by - News

Most companies experienced a cyber attack last year with more than two thirds hitting vital operational technology, according to a new Forrester report

The research, commissioned by Tenable, found that 63 percent of the 103 UK respondents had witnessed a dramatic rise in business-impacting cyber-attacks in the last two years.

In many cases, these attacks had severely damaging effects, from loss of employee data (44 percent) and financial loss or theft (36 percent), to customer attrition (34 percent ).

Two thirds of the surveyed UK security leaders claimed that these attacks also involved operational technology (OT).

COVID-19 will permanently alter business and technology. No kidding

Posted on July 17, 2020 by - News

Augurs working for the analyst outfit Forrester say that COVID-19 will usher in five macro shifts that will permanently alter business and technology.

In a  new report with the catchy title, “The New, Unstable Normal: How COVID-19 Will Change Business And Technology Forever,” Forrester describes how, despite modern healthcare and the implementation of extensive pandemic management protocols (PMPs), the effects of COVID-19 will continue to surface over the next decade and will cause profound near-, medium-, and long-term impacts.

There’s a 145 percent return on investment on hybrid cloud

Posted on July 15, 2020 by - News

Organisations that embrace hybrid cloud migration projects can yield a 145 percent return on investment within three years, according to a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Virtana.

The study, which reviewed customer projects completed in the last three years, found that a composite organisation achieved benefits of $2 million by adopting planning and optimisation platforms, such as as Virtana’s CloudWisdom and VirtualWisdom.

Mainframe finds new life in AI and Blockchain

Posted on September 17, 2019 by - News

 New Forrester Consulting research released by Ensono and Wipro suggests that companies are keeping mainframe systems and are looking to integrate them into AI and Blockchain operations.

The research was conducted by Forrester Consulting to understand the future of mainframe in enterprises. The study involving 153 IT decision-makers at director level or above across the USA and Europe, found that half of the organisations will continue with mainframe and increase its use in the next two years versus just five per cent planning to decrease or remove mainframe activity.

The research found that while mainframes continue to be considered a critical piece of infrastructure for the modern business, it was surprisingly found to be an essential element of advanced technologies like AI and Blockchain. Enterprises are now taking a hybrid approach to their infrastructure, migrating some applications to the cloud while maintaining specific business-critical applications on-premises and on mainframes.

While traditional applications and workloads (ERP (48 per cent), finance and accounting (45 per cent), HR management (44 per cent) and ECM (43 per cent)) remain the mainstay of the mainframe, 25 per cent of those surveyed stated that mobile sites and applications were being put into the mainframe; 27 per cent were running new blockchain initiatives and containerized applications.

Brexit and trade tensions will slow tech market

Posted on March 29, 2019 by - News

Donald Trump’s trade war with China and Brexit will make for much misery in the tech market, according to bean counters at Forrester.

After a “stronger than expected” 2017 and first half of 2018, analyst firm Forrester has predicted that the effects of global trade frictions, political uncertainties such as Brexit and erratic oil prices will hamper the UK and other key markets.

Although the US looks set to ride out the storm, economic weaknesses in Europe, China and emerging markets will result in tech market growth slowing to 4.5 percent in 2019 – down from five percent in 2018 – before declining further to 3.8 percent  in 2020.

Forrester predicts a tech services gig economy

Posted on January 18, 2019 by - News

Forrester analyst Jay McBain has been shuffling his tarot cards and predicts that the trusted advisor could be a thing of the past.

He thinks that marketplaces such as Amazon will accelerate the decline of resellers.

According to Forrester, 17 percent of B2B transactions will happen through marketplaces by 2020 and will threaten MSPs and channel providers who tout themselves as “one stop shop” trusted advisors.

85 percent of businesses have digital transformation plans for 2018

Posted on April 10, 2018 by - News

indexA new study indicates that more than 85 per cent of businesses plan to invest in digital transformation in 2018.

Digital engineering and IT outsourcing services outfit Virtusa has announced the findings of its The Digital Transformation Race Has Begun report which was commissioned by Virtusa and conducted by Forrester .

Virtusa global head of digital solutions Frank Palermo said:

“The Forrester Study confirms that while most companies are preparing to make digital transformation a priority, they have a long way to go before achieving any mastery over the multiple disciplines required to effectively innovate.

“Firms that are obsessed with their customer’s experience can achieve significant operational efficiencies and put innovation at the heart of their respective cultures and are the ones that will see the greatest benefits from digital transformation. In today’s business climate, with industries being disrupted at every turn, companies must be able to quickly change their products and processes to pivot to take advantage of new market opportunities. As the study finds, improving digital maturity will be key to meeting the changing needs of customers in an evolving marketplace.”

The study was generated with input from more than 600 digital transformation decision makers in Western Europe and North America to explore the state of digital maturity across six key industries. Respondents included C-level executives, vice presidents, and directors at companies with revenues ranging from $250 million to more than $1 billion.

The study deployed a digital transformation maturity index, examining firms’ innovation readiness and competency across these key industries in three areas: customer experience, operational excellence, and business innovation. In all three areas, firms fared slightly better in customer experience compared to operational excellence and business innovation.

The study identified five levels of digital transformation maturity firms could reach – Curious, Exploring, Deploying, Thriving, and Mastering – to best synthesise the data from the maturity index. On average, firms currently fall into the lower-to-middle range of the Deploying category (26.06 out of 45).

According to the study, currently, 85 percent of firms surveyed said they would increase the budget their company allocates for digital transformation next year, with 37 percent indicating the increase would be by 10 percent or more. Further findings from the study include the following:

Retail outperforms other industries across all three categories, setting the standard for creating innovative, digitally-driven customer experiences.

Banking firms are ease-of-use leaders, yet they face investment challenges, including slow economic growth, low-interest margins, increased regulation, and changing consumer expectations.

Healthcare companies traditionally lag behind other industries in adopting business technologies that help with customer engagement. This is tied to intense regulatory requirements leading to a significant focus on the security of customer data.

Insurance organisations are just beginning to digitally transform the complexity of products and services, legacy technology reliance, and risk-averse cultures all affect how fast insurers can move forward with their digital transformation journeys.

Telco firms are shifting to customer-centricity, driven in part by low customer satisfaction and disruption caused by over-the-top (OTT) providers.

Media companies have the most ground to cover in digital transformation. They also represent the group least likely to increase investment in digital transformation.

The study also recommends that firms be customer obsessed by building visions for winning over executive stakeholders, establishing baselines to construct digital transformation roadmaps, and putting innovation at the heart of their firms’ cultures to ensure greater digital transformation maturity.

The study says: “In the age of the customer, empowered, demanding customers can exercise more choice than ever before in deciding which companies will earn their business, and which will fall by the wayside. Firms must invent or reinvent their businesses with technology at the core, or watch customers defect as their markets are disrupted. Firms need to evaluate their current capabilities, then plot a path forward accordingly. Furthermore, firms must move soon to keep up with the fast pace of digital change. In the age of the customer, firms must adapt or be swept aside.”

No kidding.

 

 

 

Forrester recognises FireMon’s Zero trust street cred

Posted on February 5, 2018 by - News

Forrester-500x330Forrester Research has recognised FireMon as a key player in its  Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) Ecosystem.

For those who are not in the know, Zero Trust is an architectural conceptual model developed by Forrester Research that recommends how companies should redesign networks into “secure microperimeters”.

It requires security teams “adopt a least privilege strategy and strictly enforce access control”.

FireMon SVP of Engineering, Jeremy Martin, said that Zero Trust has become one of the key strategies for many CISOs who face increasing insider threats and the continued erosion of the perimeter.

“We’ve seen that the operational management of the security infrastructure becomes even more critical in a network implementing Zero Trust, and we are proud to see that Forrester has recognized us in this report, and we believe it is attributable to the work we’ve done in preparing our technology to fit at the highest platform level.”

The author of the ZTX report, Dr. Chase Cunningham said the goal of ZTX was that a user can refer to this architecture and framework to specifically and succinctly determine which technical solutions from which vendors will enable their Zero Trust strategic goals.

As Zero Trust architectures are more widely adopted, enterprises must maintain control of a more finely grained networks. FireMon’s centralised management console gives security teams one place to manage the policies and rules that govern Zero Trust across the global network. It is the only configuration auditing solution to also be listed as a Zero Trust platform in the eXtended Ecosystem report.

In addition to being named a Zero Trust platform vendor, FireMon was included in the lists of security automation and orchestration, security visibility and analytics and network segmentation vendors.

FireMon Chief Executive Satin H. Mirchandani said: “We are excited to see Forrester’s recognition of our unique platform for Zero Trust,” said. “As enterprises move toward Zero Trust, they require a platform that brings together vulnerability management, continuous compliance and security orchestration. We are delighted to be the only vendor able to deliver on all three essentials.”

Microsoft rethinks Euro cloud products

Posted on November 13, 2015 by - News

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEOMicrosoft thinks it has a cure for its customers’ poor attitude to cloud security.

Vole has a problem in flogging cloud based products because many users are worried that they are effectively giving their data to the US government.

Top Vole Satya Nadella believes he has devised a formula that will hand US internet and cloud computing companies a new lease of life in Europe.

He has announced moves to build new data centres in Germany under a “trustee” model. The new facilities will house Microsoft customer information, but will be operated by a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, the German telecoms group.

What this will do is put data beyond the reach of the US government — after all the Germans can be trusted not to hand over anything to the Americans.

Nadella said this means that Microsoft is adopting gold-plated privacy standards, while showing a path forward for other US cloud companies including Google, Oracle and Amazon.

He said he is merely responding to the reality that the original vision of the global “public cloud” is dead. This imagined individuals and companies being able to access their data anywhere in the world from any device, but with big tech groups building the underlying infrastructure wherever they were able to most cheaply and efficiently.

Paul Miller of Forrester Research has warned that many will see the move as proof that American companies cannot be trusted to hold the most sensitive data of European customers.

“That was a mythical way to think about it. In technology, sometimes you over-emphasise the silver bullet….” he says. The cloud “will take a different shape than it has in the past. That’s what we want to shape.”

Forrester says yes to Microsoft retail plans

Posted on June 14, 2013 by - News

StorePhoto_05Microsoft’s push into retail could just pay off, according to a report from Forrester.

Redmond has been buying up retail space in the Best Buy stores to get its message out to consumer clients. In doing so it is not following Apple, but Samsung which is trying a similar operation.

Writing in his bog, J. P. Gownder, a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, said that the Windows Store represents a complete take-over of the PC department. Windows Stores will effectively replace the computer department at these 600 Best Buy locations.

They will offer a wider range of Microsoft consumer products including tablets.

Gownder thinks that the Windows Store represents a vital strategic step forward in its retail strategy and ought to yield some benefits.

But it might be a little too late for that and it should have been a lot more ambitious.

Gownder thinks that the non-Apple Store North American retail channel for consumer electronics is broken and it is imploding. In a pattern which can be seen in Europe, a spiral of disappearing margins has made direct investment in improving stores challenging.

Retailers have resisted attempts to create better, more integrated shopping experiences and some are addicted to the incentives paid by vendors seeking preferential placement, like pricey end-caps.

In the consumer market, users are a little confused by the new computing form factors. Windows used to be one size fits all, but now they have to deal with touchscreen convertibles, hybrid PC/tablets with detachable keyboards and pure tablets running Windows RT. This is not even taking into account giant tablet-like desktop convertibles.

At the moment, it appears that the PC resellers have not managed to find their consumer-centred feet. As a result consumers just can’t figure out what all the Windows 8 options represent, Gownder wrote.

Microsoft’s move will upgrade its retail capabilities significantly, but it’s not as powerful a move as rolling out 600 Microsoft Stores would have been.

It also creates a channel conflict between Microsoft Store and Redmond’s Windows Store. Buyers familiar with Microsoft Stores could face a different experiences when visiting a Windows Store. Microsoft Stores will give technical help and customer service at their Answer Desks, but shoppers with PC problems could end up in Best Buy’s Geek Squad instead.

The scheme also creates OEM conflicts within the Windows ecosystem. Microsoft’s Windows OEM partners, who are already miffed with Microsoft concerning the Surface are now going to have to compete with Redmond’s hardware in a Windows Store managed by Microsoft itself.

Gownder was optimistic about the move, but it is not clear if it can be exported to other countries.