IDC Research Types
Analyst
Analyst Profile
Provides complete background information on an IDC analyst. Each profile provides a biography, a notable quotation, a frequently asked question relevant to the particular analyst's focus, and a list of research authored by that analyst.
Team Profile
Lists the analyst members of a topical team. Outlines general areas of coverage and any specialties.
Briefs
Flash
Provides rapid IDC insight and analysis about a significant industry event or conference, merger or acquisition, product announcement, or other fast-breaking news affecting the IT market.
Forecast Update
Provides a short, quick look at an updated forecast and the changed assumptions behind the update. It updates a market forecast published in the same calendar year, identifies changed and key forecast assumptions, and highlights actions for participants to consider in light of the changes.
IDC Insight
Provides coverage and analysis of an industry event, new product or service, or a company announcement or development.
Update
Provides brief overview coverage of what is happening in a market.
Vendor Profiles
Provides a concise, hard-hitting profile of an emerging vendor. A profile will highlight new players and technologies and the potential paradigm shifts or disruptions a vendor represents.
Daily Graphics
Daily Graphic
Illustrates IDC's keen analysis of major market trends in downloadable PowerPoints. Available as a free download the day it appears, an IDC Daily Graphic provides valuable material for speeches and strategic planning.
Event Proceedings
Event Proceeding
Provides published slides, audio, and other materials from IDC and Insights Web conferences, briefings, forums, or other events.
Events
Conference
Delivers dependable, relevant, and high-impact data and insight to help organizations make sound business and technology decisions. eBusiness executives, IT professionals, IT suppliers, and services suppliers benefit from the strategic insight and networking opportunities IDC conferences offer. Generally, all presentation slides are available online, and for most conferences, streaming audio of key discussions is available as well.
Web Conference
Focuses on significant trends and paradigm shifts. Each Web conference will provide attendees with leading-edge market information that will enable them to make smart business decisions. For those unable to attend in person or those wishing to review the content presented, these synchronized multimedia presentations are available online.
IDC DecisionScapes
IDC FutureScape
Serves as a framework for IT/tech professionals' IT strategy and planning for the next one to three years. It lists IDC's top 10 worldwide technology trends for the coming one to three years in a given research area and includes related drivers, projected IT/business strategy impact, and guidance.
IDC MarketScape
Helps IT/tech professionals develop a short list of suitable suppliers when selecting a vendor. Provides an unbiased assessment of tech suppliers in terms of offerings, strategy, capabilities, and other important factors in a given technology area.
IDC MaturityScape
Describes five stages of "maturity" or capability for a particular technology area, helps IT/tech professionals understand where their organizations fit within those stages, and provides guidance on key components for planning successful improvements to a tech initiative.
IDC MaturityScape Benchmark
Helps IT/tech professionals to benchmark their maturity against peers, develop a business case for a tech initiative, and build consensus about where critical IT investments should be made. Presents quantitative research results that show the market distribution for a given tech initiative across the five stages of maturity presented in the related IDC MaturityScape. Shows the results and components of particularly successful initiatives.
IDC PeerScape
Gives IT/tech professionals insight into best practices (and practices to avoid) by providing specific use case examples implemented by peers. Identifies practices that have the most impact on the success of a tech or business initiative, and provides actionable guidance for each practice.
IDC PlanScape
Helps IT/tech professionals to justify and plan a business and/or technology investment or opportunity by exploring why, what, who, and how (these are also the main section headings). Presents key players, critical success factors, risks, and actions to consider for a designated technology and/or business management area.
IDC TechScape
Helps IT/tech professionals with developing IT strategic plans and evaluating emerging technologies in terms of their risk to the business. Shows the adoption curve and risk levels over time for a specific emerging technology. Sorts technologies into three "adoption model" categories (transformational, incremental, opportunistic) to help tech leaders determine the potential impact for their organization.
IDC Links
IDC Link
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece. IDC Links provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
Insights-only Research
Best Practices
Correlates the use of specific practices and superior performance as indicated by an analysis of the benchmarking database. Highlights any significant differences between industries. Conclusions provide a set of process priorities for improving a business case and advice on how to overcome change management issues.
Business Strategy
Helps buyers to assess their business strategies and/or associated business processes, especially as they relate to the use of technology.
Methods and Practices
Provides a step-by-step description of a method or methods that can be applied. As appropriate, the report may compare the benefits and drawbacks of several methods.
Perspective
Presents an article written by an Insights analyst on a topic of special interest to a target audience. This information has generally already appeared in an industry publication and is repackaged for display on the Insights Web site.
Vendor Assessment
Helps buyers select the right IT supplier. The report helps buyers understand the various providers of a technology by providing analysis on market landscape, vendor profiles, vendor market share, and vendor assessments.
Pivot Tables
Pivot Table
Presents an interactive spreadsheet tool for analyzing trends and activities in a specific market segment. These tables are available only through an annual subscription service.
Predictions
Top 10 Predictions
Provides bold, well-conceived market predictions grounded in solid methodologies, primary research, and analyst experience. Lays out a clear road map to understanding major market opportunities and trends.
Presentations
IDC Presentation
Provides the latest, select CIS forecast data, primary research survey findings, and critical IDC analyst opinion in a succinct, easy-to-digest PowerPoint format.
IDC Survey
Presents a hypothesis about what is happening in the market backed by the results of a demand-side or supply-side survey. The focus is on interpreting and analyzing the survey results and providing a strong point of view along with actionable advice.
IDC Survey Spotlight
Answers a timely question and provides a strong opinion backed by IDC survey data. This is a quick nugget of information that is presented in two concise PowerPoint slides.
Insights Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
Market Analysis Perspective
Delivers a concise current state view of a market and insight into the impact of future trends. Business executives, product managers, and MI/AR professionals can use this information when looking to understand buyers' perspectives and market impacts.
Press Releases
Press Release
Announces significant corporate news, such as key hirings or promotions, performance milestones, event highlights, or speaking engagements.
Product Information
Fact Sheet
Describes a research product. Usually details the major areas of coverage and deliverables, and outlines key questions and competitive market conditions that the research will address. Includes links to all published research for a research product.
Studies
Competitive Analysis
Provides a detailed accounting and review of a vendor's programs, processes, products, service, satisfaction, and/or strategy in a target market. This knowledge helps clients reduce their risk of losing market share or enhance their position over the competition.
Customer Needs and Strategies
Focuses on the important decisions that business and IT professionals make every day.
Industry Developments and Models
Provides a detailed assessment of a specific target market's expansion pattern. This analysis helps clients develop and deploy the right mix of value-add products, programs, or services to support their sales and/or partnering efforts.
Market Analysis
Provides an in-depth examination of the dynamics and future of a single market or a group of related markets. The Market Analysis is where we will typically present our forecasts and assumptions, using a key forecast assumptions table.
Market Forecast
Provides the future of a single market or a group of related markets. It presents a new or updated market forecast, including key drivers and assumptions used in the forecast.
Market Share
Provides data on market size, regional allocations, and platform splits as well as a summary of vendor shares for the most recently completed period (year, quarter).
Special Study
Provides a onetime study produced by a research group that is not published as a deliverable under a subscription service.
Survey
Provides a study and interpretation of the results of a demand- or supply-side survey.
Taxonomy
Highlights and emphasizes how IDC tracks the market while also making it easier for customers to find and identify IDC Taxonomy documents.
Technology Assessment
Provides an analysis of the intricacies of an emerging or established technology or the technologies contained within a specific product.
Vendor Needs and Strategies
Provides an in-depth analysis of a company, a small group of companies, a division of a company focused on a particular market, or a best practice that the company exemplifies.
This IDC Perspective discusses the power of AI/ML-powered marketing solutions for transforming customer experiences and supporting superior business outcomes. This document spotlights how Adobe Sensei incorporates into Adobe Experience Cloud, ...
This IDC study represents a vendor assessment of Salesforce implementation services through the IDC MarketScape model. This assessment discusses both quantitative and qualitative characteristics that explain success in the Salesforce implementation ...
This IDC Perspective highlights key differentiators of retail merchandise operations management solutions and points to a significant gap between what retailers perceive as important capabilities in these systems and how satisfied they are ...
This IDC Web Conference presents a discussion by IDC's Gerry Murray on the key developments that will impact the skills, practices, and technology needs of chief marketing officers (CMOs) and their teams as they learn to thrive in the next ...
This IDC Perspective offers CMOs, their management teams, and their C-suite colleagues a window into the results of IDC's 2020 Tech Marketing Benchmark Survey. A 55-page extended study with details on this survey (now in its 18th ...
This IDC study provides an assessment of prominent integrated workplace management system (IWMS) vendors and discusses what criteria are most important for companies to consider when selecting an IWMS software solution.
"Organizations ...
This IDC Perspective summarizes key takeaways from Oracle Live: Cloud Applications, held September 29, and Oracle Virtual Analyst Summit: Oracle Cloud CX, held October 1. Both events focused on upcoming product releases, future product road ...
This IDC study presents the top 10 predictions and key drivers for the agriculture industry for the next five years. IDC Energy Insights has identified the main drivers that set the context and conditions for designing and executing agriculture ...
This IDC FutureScape presents 10 transformational trends for B2B sales leaders and their teams to consider as opportunities for differentiation and competitive advantage. Key themes include AI, analytical skills, value and virtual selling, ...
This IDC study presents 10 transformational trends for CMOs and their marketing teams to consider as opportunities for differentiation and competitive advantage. Key themes include AI, empathy and trust, social responsibility, and operational ...
This IDC Perspective contributes ideas and recommendations from analysts, clients, and event experts to assist marketing leaders with adapting events to the next normal. Forward-looking guidance on event marketing is provided. Marketing ...
This IDC PlanScape highlights the growing but underutilized set of next-generation marketing analytics capabilities and solutions that can help address investment analysis issues and prepare retailers for the future.
"For retailers, ...
"As the competition becomes increasingly fierce in the banking consumer market in Asia/Pacific, banks must do further effort in their marketing process. Relationship development is not only for a bank's customers, but also for its prospective ...
"As the competition becomes increasingly fierce in the banking consumer market in AP, banks must do further effort for their customers. Contextual banking, the next level of customer relationship, is realized through developing a deeper ...
This IDC Perspective addresses a fundamental challenge in retail that is often ignored. Marketing investments are some of the largest poorly analyzed investments in a retail organization. The true commercial impact of marketing spend is ...
This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation provides user intelligence vendor directory. Businesses are very interested in trying the consumption business model, but they first must aggregate and analyze customer usage over time to understand value ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the need to scale value-based selling competencies and technology to every rep and every deal. The COVID-19-induced slowdown in purchasing is rippling through every layer of the global economy. Many businesses ...
This IDC Perspective contributes ideas and recommendations from analysts, clients, and event experts to assist marketing leaders with adapting. Guidance on empathic communications, event virtualization, and managing under uncertain conditions ...
This IDC Perspective reviews how optimized marketing and advertising can effectively improve real-time contextual personalization. The study presents the key retail market trends (at the worldwide level and in Europe), advertising and marketing ...
This IDC Perspective addresses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sales and the necessity of transitioning all sales reps from field to virtual. It includes recommendations for assessing the sales tech stack and relationships with customers ...
This IDC Perspective provides a description of the business development rep (BDR) role, outlines considerations for the reporting structure, and shares tips from BDR managers on making the role successful. More than half of tech companies ...
Empathy is felt when organizations can capture micro-moments and recommend next-best actions to move customers closer to their jobs to be done. To this end, organizations must focus on effective conversations since every interaction with ...
This IDC Presentation demonstrates that a bank’s key channel for sales and services is digital. However, the transition from human to digital interactions has forced banks to face new challenges, such as how to effectively sell products ...
This IDC Perspective reviews the challenges that marketing organizations face as they transition to the new work experience. The document presents a framework for approaching those challenges and shares a conversation with IBM as an example ...
This IDC study compares the breadth of AI-enabled use cases for marketers in some of the most prominent marketing cloud solutions. The capabilities analysis is largely based on the number of use cases available and the road map for future ...
This IDC study highlights a digital transformation (DX) framework that aids manufacturers as they build or maintain an omni-experience customer engagement strategy and program. Omni-experience customer engagement use cases represent a subset ...
This IDC Perspective summarizes key takeaways from Salesforce's Dreamforce 2019 for technology buyers, including discussion around new product releases and future product road maps.
"Salesforce has invested heavily in some key acquisitions ...
This IDC Perspective highlights three converging trends in retail that challenge macrolevel space planning in merchandising. The document outlines the collective constraints on space posed by small-format stores, in-store services, and omni-channel ...
This IDC study provides an assessment of the primary PIM application vendors for digital commerce use cases. The study also discusses what criteria are most important for companies to consider when selecting a system.
"Product information ...
This IDC Perspective offers CMOs and their management teams and C-suite colleagues a window into the results of IDC's 2019 Tech Marketing Benchmark Survey. A 56-page extended study with details on this survey (now in its 17th year) ...
This IDC Web Conference presents a discussion by IDC's Gerry Murray on several key issues facing chief marketing officers (CMOs) that will impact the operational and technology decisions that CMOs will need to make over the next one to five ...
This IDC study outlines 10 of the most urgent issues CMOs must master to drive their brands, organizations, and careers to the top of the next set of disruptions coming to marketing.
"Marketing is transitioning from a decade of investment ...
IDC Innovators are emerging vendors with revenue <$100 million that have demonstrated either a groundbreaking business model or an innovative new technology — or both. This IDC Innovators study profiles Chisel AI, Finaeo, League, PolicyMe, ...
This IDC Perspective outlines the expected impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on marketing roles. Because of the high degree of decision making in marketing, this function will be among the first to be radically transformed by AI. The ...
This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation provides IDC's view on customer consent — one of the key tenets of IDC's Hierarchy of Customer Expectations. The presentation highlights how customer consent becomes a critical point in implementing customer ...
This IDC Perspective explains the appropriate use of a customer journey model and illustrates a step-by-step method for converting the insights into persuasive content. Although customer journey models are virtually ubiquitous in tech marketing ...
This IDC Perspective studies the primary factors CMOs consider when designing organizations today, including six case studies analyzing decisions made by CMOs in companies with differing sizes and business models. Agility, speed, and customer ...
The IDC TechScape provides a list of technologies that retailers should invest in considering their current level of customer experience personalization and their need to differentiate their offerings. The IDC TechScape aims to support retailers:
- Identify ...
This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation provides insights into European marketers' customer journey management activities and emerging best practices. It was delivered at the Engage CX Marketing Summit in London on June 13, 2019. The aim of this ...
This IDC Market Perspective provides a review of SAP's Sales Cloud announcements at the company's CX Live event held in Orlando, Florida, May 7–8, 2019. SAP has advanced its Sales Cloud with the acquisition of CallidusCloud and is rapidly ...
This IDC study presents a digital transformation road map framework that enables retail organizations to develop their own digital transformation road map for experiential retail operations.
"Retail organizations should customize the ...
This IDC TechBrief describes the needs, use cases, risks, and success factors associated with a customer data platform deployment.
"Marketers with greater insights into the whole customer relationship have a distinct competitive advantage ...
This IDC study provides IDC's top 10 predictions for CMOs and their organizations for 2019.
According to Gerry Murray, research director, IDC's Marketing and Sales Technology service, "As CMOs face another tsunami of change, they have ...
This IDC study examines how 10 innovation forces will shape the consumer technology market over the next three years.
"Consumer digital transformation (DX) continues to drive new devices, services, technologies, and experiences," says ...
This IDC PeerScape explores how and why IT leaders at three large corporations are honing their storytelling skills and prioritizing IT marketing efforts on the strategic agenda. One of the primary benefits of doing so has been continual ...
This IDC Perspective introduces IDC's Hierarchy of Customer Expectations, which illustrates key aspects of the commercial relationship from the customer's point of view. These expectations place specific demands on the marketing organization ...
This IDC study represents a vendor assessment of the learning management and development capabilities offered as part of an integrated talent management solution through the IDC MarketScape model. This assessment discusses both quantitative ...
This IDC Manufacturing Insights report uses the IDC MarketScape model to provide an assessment of a number of providers participating in the worldwide trade planning management market. The IDC MarketScape is an evaluation based on a comprehensive ...
This IDC PeerScape is intended for retailers familiar with order management software that are seeking to optimize configurations. This document will share some best practices that retailers have identified to change the game for their business ...
This IDC study evaluates point-of-sale (POS) software vendors in the department store retail sector. The document examines how point-of-sale software vendors are developing their solutions to respond to the increasing omni-channel commerce ...
This IDC study provides an assessment of the leading SaaS and cloud-enabled procure-to-pay software solutions and discusses what criteria are most important for companies to consider when selecting a system.
"Technologies such as advanced ...
This IDC study provides details about the importance of agency services to the digital-native enterprise.
According to Michael Versace, research director, Digital Strategy and Agency Services, "Where traditional systems integrators ...
This IDC TechBrief discusses account-based marketing.
"The goal for all marketers today is to deliver more value than competitors can as early in the relationship as possible," stated Gerry Murray, research director of IDC's Sales ...
This IDC Perspective illustrates what a digital-native enterprise looks like and can achieve when it has "digital" ingrained in the most important aspects of its culture and business. Digital transformation has progressed to where it is ...
This IDC study provides IDC's top 10 predictions for chief marketing officers and their organizations for 2018.
"Customer experience typically starts with marketing," said Gerry Murray, research director, Sales and Marketing Technology, ...
This IDC study provides IDC's top 10 predictions for chief marketing officers and their organizations for 2017. The predictions in this document detail how 10 powerfully disruptive forces can be used to do exactly that. Of course no one ...
This IDC study provides IDC's top 10 predictions across social business and customer experience. These predictions provide a strategic context that will enable decision makers to partner and lead conversations around how to deliver meaningful ...
This IDC study discusses the worldwide wearables and augmented reality/virtual reality 2017 predictions.
"Wearables and augmented/virtual reality stand to positively affect productivity," said Ramon T. Llamas, research manager for ...
This IDC study makes the case that adopting cognitive marketing is an immediate competitive imperative for all marketers. This study describes the profound effects cognitive will have on consumer behavior, briefly explains cognitive computing, ...
This IDC study discusses aspects of building a business case for the cloud transition strategy.
"Building any business case is the combination of science and art. This study focuses on the science side. It's a framework detailing the ...