Top ten global analysts: 2016’s outstanding research

2016 produced some outstanding analyst research. We’ve picked the best articles from each of the world’s ten leading analysts firms, as ranked in the 2017 Analyst Firm Awards. Together they show how diverse analysts’ most compelling content can be, including deep quantitative research into mature markets, like cellphones; pointed competitive insight into corporate changes, like Dell’s integration of EMC, and expert analysis of emerging markets, like automotive location services.

1. Gartner’s Anshul Gupta made a stir with research about how Chinese brands are winning, and Apple falling fast, in the growing cellphone market.
2. Customer experience evangelist Harley Manning wrote Forrester’s spirited advocacy of investing despite market volatility.
3. Anthony Scarsella and the IDC Tracker team impressed us with more granular and diligent research showing the arrival of new Chinese competitors within the global top five smartphone players. OPPO and vivo overtook Lenovo and Xiaomi, while Apple continued to fall.
4. HfS Research’s Pareekh Jain ranked IT companies, producing a new top 20, in the under-researched but extensive engineering services market.
5. At CXP Group’s PAC unit, Franck Nassah wrote a nuanced analysis (in French) of ten leading IT companies, carefully contrasting Accenture’s lead in organic business growth, with the impressive external acquisition of revenue by GFI and econocon.
6. Ovum’s Neha Dharia and Eden Zoller continue to produce one of the most impressive on-going competitive analyses of any emerging market, informing their readers about Google and HERE’s battle for leadership in Ovum’s most recent Location Platform Index.
7. Everest Group’s CEO Peter Bendor-Samuel delivered refreshing news about Amelia, a robot, concluding that “She can do what I would say is at least 30 percent or more of the work currently performed in today’s call centers.”
8. Tim Stammer’s analysis, for 451 Research, of Hitachi Data Service’s move into all-flash memory impressed us.
9. At NelsonHall, Andy Efstathiou’s research used Genpact’s cloud delivery to exemplify rapid changes in financial technology.
10. ISG partner Steve Hall’s post outlined five key trends of third-generation outsourcing deals’ benefits.