Forrester’s New Wave has so quickly become part of the analyst relations furniture: it’s easy to understand what a difference it makes.
The New Wave is best thought of as a Wave for emerging market categories. There are four major differences.
- Unlike each classic Wave’s stable scope, the analyst is empowered to work with a content editor to refocus the New Wave space.
- The New Wave lacks the very extensive questionnaire of the classic Wave.
- Vendors in the New Wave get only two business days to review Forrester’s draft of its snapshot, and the scores cannot be changed (unlike the classic Wave).
- If there is a major event, such as fundamental M&A, Forrester can revise the classic Wave. That can’t happen with the New Wave.
This method not only creates more agility for Forrester, it also allows the Wave family to better reflect Forrester’s work with new technology categories. It produces more rigour than, for example, Gartner’s Cool Vendor lists and give vendors more of a chance to gain favourable inclusions.
