The Forrester Landscape Methodology

Executive Summary

The Forrester Landscape is designed to help our clients understand, identify, and explore the vendors and services providers that align with their most critical business technology issues.

Why Forrester Writes Landscape Reports

A Landscape report highlights the value proposition, vendor or provider segments, and individual vendors or providers operating in a marketplace. Landscapes help Forrester clients become more educated about a market by defining current-state market maturity, detailing the top market dynamics and use cases, and providing a list of vendors or providers that they might prioritize based on size, focus, and geography.

The Forrester Landscape builds on Forrester’s knowledge of key technology and services markets. Specifically:

  • Landscapes focus on use cases for tech markets and business scenarios for services. Analysts define the top use cases that a tech market addresses or business scenarios that a services market addresses. For technologies, vendors and features will be mapped to use cases. For services, providers and capabilities will be mapped to business scenarios.
  • Landscape reports accommodate markets of multiple maturity levels. The Landscape report details markets in three different levels of maturity: emerging, established, and mature. The components of the report will vary depending on the maturity of the market we cover.
  • Landscapes are based on data that vendors and providers submit to Forrester. The research process includes the distribution of a questionnaire to vendors in the market to help define and segment the market.

The Forrester Landscape Process Roadmap

While specific components of a Landscape report depend on the market maturity, the Landscape process is as follows:

  • Conduct preliminary research and planning. In preparation for the Landscape, the analyst defines the scope of the category, creates the market definition, and identifies the relevant vendors in the space.
  • Define use case and functionality/business scenarios and capabilities. For software markets, the analyst will define the top use cases and key functionalities. For services markets, the analyst will define the top business scenarios and key capabilities. This is part of Forrester’s analysis of a market. We do not accept vendor feedback on how use cases and business scenarios are represented in the report.
  • Develop and distribute the questionnaire. The research team will create and distribute the questionnaire to relevant vendors in the market. This is the opportunity for vendors to provide data related to their company and products or services. The self-reported data will be included in key report graphics. In cases where a vendor does not or is not able to complete components of the questionnaire, Forrester reserves the right to use estimates in the report.
  • Aggregate data responses, define market maturity, and create graphics. The analyst will review the full data set to determine the overall market maturity; define the top market dynamics; and create the vendor-focused, use case, and functionality graphics.
  • Share a graphics preview. At this stage, Forrester shares a courtesy preview of the graphics that feature specific vendors. This is a courtesy step only; we don’t accept new information or requests to revise the original questionnaire responses.
  • Move to courtesy preview and publication. Prior to publication, Forrester provides a courtesy preview of the report in full to participating vendors. We consider the content of the Forrester Landscape to be final at this point, although we reserve the right to make corrections until publication.