{"id":2356,"date":"2018-08-11T14:47:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T14:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/no-more-quadrants_081118\/"},"modified":"2018-08-11T14:47:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T14:47:00","slug":"no-more-quadrants_081118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/no-more-quadrants_081118\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to kick out quadrants, paralyse peaks and wash away waves. Hello HFS TOP 10"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yes, folks – the rumors are true.\u00a0 HFS\u00a0is officially\u00a0out<\/em> of the quadrant business.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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We’re done, the whole quadrant craze is starting to smell pretty bad and we know<\/em> the industry is fed up with it. Increasingly, many of these 2×2 matrices are missing several of the market leaders (who refuse to participate) and having them all stacked in the top right just smacks of pay-for-play<\/em> (even if the analyst has fair intentions).\u00a0 Let’s be honest, noone trusts<\/em> these matrices and they are harming the entire credibility of the analyst industry.\u00a0 Sure, there are many honest, quality analysts with integrity, but their craft is being soiled by several quacks who are basing their vendor placements purely on vendor briefings, whether they like a particular vendor, and whether some vendors pony up for their research services.\u00a0 There are many “analysts” out there who do not bother to do sufficient customer research and we all suspect who these characters (and their employers) are…\u00a0<\/div>\n
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If we don’t change, we all – as analysts – might as well admit we’re no longer in the research business:\u00a0 we’re in the vendor PR business<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes, it’s that bad… and let’s stop sugar coating it.<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Enterprise executives tell us all the time they get zero value from these grids – they are purely for vendor marketing sales decks (and I talk to a helluva lot of these enterprise folks). However, enterprises desperately need to be informed on vendor performance – they just need a direct ranking that’s relevant<\/em> for their needs, where a credible analyst puts a stake in the ground.\u00a0 That’s what everyone has told me, so that is what we are delivering:\u00a0 The HFS\u00a0TOP 10.<\/div>\n
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Quadrants, Peaks, NEATS and Waves – and sadly Blueprints – are all sales tools for vendors as opposed to decision support tools for enterprise customers.\u00a0 At HFS, we are not in that business – we are in the research business<\/em> to support informed enterprise decisions.\u00a0<\/span>At HFS, we are\u00a0not<\/u>\u00a0ending our involvement in covering the hottest markets in the industry and producing the best competitive analyses, we are merely making our research more relevant<\/em>, more timely<\/em> and more impactful with the HFS TOP 10 and much more simplified to support the enterprise customer. What’s more, when some firms take six to nine months to get a quadrant to market, that market has often already moved on, and the data, despite its credibility,\u00a0may already be stale.\u00a0 We are in a world that doesn’t stand still, where enterprise customers are thirsty for timely, credible data that clearly shows the winners, contenders and laggards in a given market.\u00a0<\/div>\n