Forrester’s continuing acquisitions spotlight the firm’s evolution from pure-play analyst house to a digital business advisory and services provider.
On July 10, 2018, Forrester confirmed the purchase of two technology providers, Glimpzlt and FeedbackNow. Together, the purchases enhance Forrester’s ability to provide operational solutions that will be part of the customer experience suite that it called the CX Cloud.
Why this matters
The move is significant in three main ways:
- – It confirms Forrester’s evolution from an analyst firm to a multi-service digital strategy consultancy.
- – It pushes Forrester away from product-like subscriptions, into a servitized cloud pricing model
- – Forrester is voting with its feet on the analyst industry by not making a similar investment in another analyst firm or even in beefing up its own sales force.
The bottom line
While this may concern people who valued Forrester’s value proposition as a traditional analyst firm, most of Forrester’s customers seem to approve of the shift. Forrester was one of the 2017 Analyst Firm Award winners in almost every category, and looks set for an interesting journey.
