introduced<\/a> the famous HFS Top 10 over four years ago, the whole purpose was for our analysts to put a stake in the ground and produce something relevant to support enterprise decision-making.\u00a0 We wanted to differentiate HFS from our competitors by producing a relevant decision-making support tool for enterprise leaders, not marketing fodder for vendor press releases.<\/p>\nFast-forward four years, and the analyst industry hasn’t changed a bit – we are still subjected to Magic Quadrants, Waves, and Peaks developed solely for the paid inclusion in supplier sales decks and press releases. While some are pretty decent, there are so many that miss key suppliers, lack the integrity of customer references (if they do any at all), and are scored largely on how well the vendor wows them in a briefing and at their fancy conferences.<\/p>\n
Moreover, by lumping so many suppliers into the top right of their charts, the analyst has essentially made many of them “winners” to make it easier to sell more licenses to eager marketers.\u00a0 \u00a0As a result, the HFS Top Ten has become hugely popular as the one decision tool that enterprise buyers really trust<\/em> to access deep profiles of suppliers across many dimensions of innovation, execution, voice of the customer, and OneOffice alignment.<\/p>\nHowever, like all good things, we need to evolve with the times, and while we want to build on the integrity and depth of the Top Ten research, we strongly feel it is time to align supplier performance across the three horizons of innovation:\u00a0 Outcomes, Experiences and Synergy:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While the rest of the analyst industry persists in looking in the rearview mirror at the world, we’re determined to keep looking forward<\/h2>\n
We need to stay true to our reputation of being unafraid to challenge and disrupt ourselves and keep looking forward. The best time to retire a product is when it is successful!<\/p>\n
So how will Horizons reports work?<\/strong><\/p>\nHFS Horizons reports will be completely aligned with our vision for enterprise innovation and will paint the supplier landscape across:<\/p>\n
\n- Horizon 1: Outcomes (based on functional digital transformation)<\/li>\n
- Horizon 2: Experiences (based on a OneOffice mindset)<\/li>\n
- Horizon 3: Synergy (based on a OneEcosystem approach)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Instead of ranking based on execution, innovation, and customer satisfaction; we will be evaluating suppliers based on the \u201cWhy, What, How, and So What\u201d of enterprise innovation:<\/p>\n
\n- Why? \u2013 The value proposition<\/li>\n
- What? \u2013 The solutions and capabilities<\/li>\n
- How? \u2013 The Go-to-Market strategy and investments<\/li>\n
- So What? \u2013 The market impact in terms of mindshare and wallet share<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
While customer feedback will continue to be a critical ingredient for Horizonsassessment, we will also expand our data sources to understand employee experience and partner experience. HFS will invest and rely on its own proprietary data sources more heavily versus supplier-provided information<\/p>\n