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.
Xero’s acquisition of Planday aligns to its strategy of supporting small and medium businesses (SMBs) through simplified business technology. The integration opportunities between workforce management, payroll and finance allows for business ...
This IDC PlanScape discusses integrated physical security solutions for cities. Integrated physical security solutions provide cities with better, more immediate situational awareness when responding to security incidents. Integrated card ...
This IDC study discusses creating professional development programs for cybersecurity.
"The world of cybersecurity is becoming increasingly siloed," says Mike Chapple, adjunct analyst, IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP). "Leaders should ...
The risk of growing digital gaps can have a serious impact on the speed of recovery in different parts of the world and society experience, according to the World Economic Forum's (WEF) recent 2021 Global Risk Perception Survey. Another ...
HCL Technologies' achievement of the coveted US$10 billion a year revenue tag marks its entry into a rather select club of global IT services vendors and should open new opportunities for the vendor as it gears to compete for bigger and ...
This IDC study examines the importance of building regulatory compliance in the cloud. In today's environment, it is not only possible but often preferable to run regulated workloads in a public cloud environment, and IT leaders around the ...
Operations-intensive organizations are undergoing digital transformation. This is not only affecting technology and processes,but is also having a particularly strong impact on organizations' structures and roles, as well as the responsibilities ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight highlights the top 3 IT investment and strategy topics in the hospitality and tourism industry.
"Nearly 57% of respondents indicated that they meet with the board of directors (BODs) either monthly or quarterly. ...
This IDC Market Note examines facial recognition, explores the potential uses for such technology, and reviews potential solutions to guard against nefarious use. Facial recognition has gotten a bad rap in public policy and regulatory circles, ...
This IDC study discusses the drivers and dynamics that had an impact on the global enterprise legal management software market in 2020 and provides insight into future trends that may influence market demand over the 2021–2025 period.
"To ...
This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation examines the key trends in integrated physical solutions — video surveillance and card access to buildings. Integrated physical security refers to the combination of people, workflow, and technology deployed ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight provides insights from IDC's 2020 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Maturity Survey conducted from October to November 2020. It looks specifically at which AI use cases are higher on the agenda ...
This IDC Market Glance provides a view of the current makeup of the Intelligent CloudOps software landscape. It illustrates the participating vendors and depicts market segments and structure. This document aligns with the recently published ...
On March 1, 2021, Broadcom Software delivered its new Symantec Web Protection Suite offering. The strength of the suite approach is that it provides flexibility and choice to organizations. Security can be applied by an on-premises appliance, ...
The intent to merge announced by Arcserve and StorageCraft represents an interesting combination of Arcserve's backup and recovery software, Arcserve's partnership with Sophos for data security, and StorageCraft's converged scale-out storage ...
In 2018, IDC undertook a study of the perceived trustworthiness of the digital activities of a range of organizations operating within the digital realm.
This study was replicated at the end of 2020, and the results for Southeast Asia ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight examines automation will remain the new normal.
Reconfirmed in the latest IDC survey of enterprise decision makers, the pandemic has had an enduring impact on work practices and technologies. The pandemic ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight offers insights into what some companies are doing to reduce downtime within their datacenters. 53% of companies have seen a reduction in downtime within their environments over the past two years.
In April ...
This IDC Perspective analyzes how the transformation enabled by events in 2020 made data-driven factories the central element of manufacturers' business strategies. It also provides insight into how companies are tackling these issues.
"Manufacturers ...
This Market Note presents IDC's view on the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact signed in Europe in January 2021 by member organizations of Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE).
On February 16, 2021, VMware launched Customer Connect, a rebranding and unification effort of My VMware and other VMware customer experience-facing assets, tools, and platforms. The unification of these resources can help customers easily ...
This IDC Market Presentation examines the latest business sentiment among IT professionals in Europe regarding the role of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles in day-to-day business operations and in ...
This IDC Special Study aims to understand enterprise readiness and attitudes toward deploying private cellular/5G/mobile networks and the partners they choose to design, build, run, and manage these networks.
"IDC believes services ...
This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation provides senior IT leaders with a detailed framework for integrated business portfolio management. An integrated business portfolio management strategy enables sustainable business and IT prioritization of ...
This IDC Perspective identifies six crucial questions that IT executives should ask vendors claiming to offer cybersecurity solutions that incorporate machine learning technology. These questions are intended to identify the data and algorithms ...