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 study provides IDC's future enterprise use cases for the future of customer and consumer as it seeks to support business strategy and success. This taxonomy is organized to mime strategic priorities that serve to define how line-of-business ...
This IDC PlanScape identifies the main drivers (why), foundational elements (what), key actors (who), and business outcomes (how) involved in enhancing customer experience that helps retail organizations better respond in real time to unpredictable ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight analyzes the maturity of retailers' customer journey models to improve real-time contextual customer experience (CX) personalization. It explores how retailers' customer journey models have changed since 2017 onward ...
This IDC Perspective analyzes how apparel, footwear, and homeware retailer N Brown Group PLC upgraded its legacy retail commerce platform by leveraging a strategic partnership with IT services and consulting firm TCS. The program, which ...
This IDC MarketScape assesses the capabilities and strategies of selected enterprise service providers in serving the specific needs of retail companies worldwide across industry segments (food and non-food retail). It assesses service providers ...
This IDC MarketScape assesses the capabilities and strategies of several key enterprise software providers in serving the specific needs of retail companies worldwide across industry segments (food and nonfood retail). Vendors are evaluated ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight provides an overview on the top 3 technologies that retailers are currently implementing across different subindustries (food and grocery, fashion and apparel, consumer electronics, specialty retailers, etc.). The ...
This IDC study explores the impact that technology will have on customer experience and the future of engagement and empathy between brand and customer.
According to Alan Webber, program vice president, Customer Experience Applications ...
This IDC study explores how disruption caused by the pandemic has had profound impacts on the retail industry and the ways that retailers have continued and will continue to respond with major shifts in investment priorities and technology ...
This IDC Market Presentation provides an overview on the key insights of our latest research on retail customer experience (CX). Based IDC's 2020 Global Retail Innovation Survey, this report shows the main trends of retail customer ...
This IDC MaturityScape describes the five stages of maturity for retail CX personalization. Retail organizations that can effectively develop a culture of innovative CX personalization will be increasingly successful in achieving the organization's ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight discusses the importance of customer experience for retailers in preparation for the "next normal." Based on the results from the IDC Global Retail Innovation Survey, 2020, and the IDC Global Retail Innovation ...
This IDC PeerScape reports the direct experience of food and grocery retailers and identifies five best practices that help them compete in the next normal. Food and grocery retailers need to address the current challenges — such as inefficient ...
This IDC eBook provides an exclusive look at IDC's new future of customers and consumers (FoCC) research. It emphasizes loyalty as a key in a competitive market and shows why establishing empathy at scale through technology will create lasting, ...
This IDC Market Presentation provides an overview of the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in empowering commerce everywhere. The document presents the IDC's point of view on cognitive/AI definition, shows the AI areas retailers are investing ...
This IDC Market Perspective assesses and evaluates the future of the enterprise customer and is more than an academic exercise. Such is the pace of technology innovation, that those that wait until the future customer state arrives will ...
This IDC PeerScape examines three practices adopted by retailers to generate greater customer traffic, increase shoppers' loyalty, and limit the use of internal resources when expanding their product ranges.
"Retailers are facing ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the future of customers and consumers as defined by a global team of IDC analysts. In this document we highlight a model for interactions between customers and brands through the prism of technology and prepared ...
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 Tech Buyer Presentation studies the key trends that will drive customer experience (CX) in retail, where it is still considered a top business priority and a key differentiator, over the next several years. It provides an overview ...
This IDC Perspective provides the key takeaways from the NRF Big Show 2020 event held in New York City.
Retailers at NRF 2020 were getting down to brass tacks with a pragmatic and holistic approach to business, intent on transforming ...
This IDC study explores how different drivers are collectively impacting technology in the retail industry and offers guidance on actions to consider. Retail organizations are hard pressed in the new digital era to respond to a wide range ...
This IDC Market Presentation provides IDC's perspective on how new commerce everywhere business models are architected to generate value in the ecosystem beyond selling products and services to consumers. It also examines why the ecosystem ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight provides an overview on the evolution of the customer journey model in the past three years. The results, coming from IDC's 2019 Global Retail Innovation Survey, offer a specific focus on customer ...
This IDC Perspective presents an overview of key takeaways from SAP Industry Analyst Base Camp (IABC) in SAP's Newtown Square headquarters, with a focus on SAP's retail vision. During the event, SAP executives presented the company's mission ...
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 Innovators study profiles four notable vendors that leverage conversational commerce to improve customer experience in retail: Avaamo, Botbot.AI, Layer, and Red Ant. IDC Innovators are emerging vendors with revenues of more than ...
This IDC PeerScape presents five practices for delivering effective mobile retail customer experience (CX). Customers are increasingly searching for products online using their mobile phones from notifications that pop up as messages preview, ...
This IDC MarketScape assesses the capabilities and strategies of several key enterprise software vendors in serving the specific needs of retail companies worldwide across industry segments (food and non-food retail). Vendors are evaluated ...
This IDC Retail Insights study evaluates worldwide enterprise consulting and system integration organizations that provide specific capabilities in designing and managing organizational change, implementation, and supporting the evolution ...
This IDC study provides the top 10 predictions and underlying drivers that we expect to impact customer experience in 2019 and beyond.
According to Alan Webber, research director, IDC Customer Experience, "Providing a differentiated ...
This IDC study explores how different drivers are collectively impacting technology in the retail industry and offers guidance on actions to consider. Retail organizations are hard pressed in the new digital era to respond to a wide range ...
This IDC MaturityScape includes five stages of retail ecommerce maturity, from the simplest and unstructured Ad Hoc stage to the most mature and systemized Optimized stage. IDC identifies these stages with the succession of the main ecommerce ...
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 three notable vendors that leverage ...
This IDC PeerScape document addresses the main challenges that retailers are facing when approaching customers. It also suggests starting points for technology buyers to differentiate customer experience. Lessons learned from companies that ...
This IDC Web Conference explores the new IT capabilities (processes, platforms, talent, governance) needed for digital transformation and the three critical digital strategies many organizations are pursuing: experiential engagement, data ...