Ventana Research Introduces Business and Technology Research Agenda for 2015

    SAN RAMON, CA, January 07, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Ventana Research, which provides market research, best practices and business insights on the strategic and operational uses of technology across business and IT functions, today released its research and educational agenda for 2015. This agenda includes details of the research-based reports and analyses the firm will deliver in the coming year to help businesses utilize their technology resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. The research agenda clearly differentiates the fact-based services Ventana Research provides from the less rigorous offerings of IT analyst or consulting firms that base their guidance on input from a limited number of clients and lack the methodical discipline to fully evaluate and prioritize market trends.

Ventana Research's projects for 2015 will include benchmark-based market research and vendor- and product-focused Value Indexes covering a broad range of topics in the lines of business, IT organizations and vertical industries. The benchmark research will examine the key technology innovations that are changing the way business operates: big data, business analytics, business and social collaboration, cloud computing, cognitive computing, mobile technology, social media and wearable computing. It will assess their impacts in finance, human resources, sales, marketing, customer service, operations, supply chain and IT functions in more than 20 vertical industries. Ventana Research also will continue and expand its vendor- and technology-oriented Value Index assessments; these reports utilize the most comprehensive research-based methodology in the industry to evaluate products for suitability-to-task and the information and support vendors provide in an RFP-oriented format that can help organizations reduce cost, time and risk in assessing technology tools.

As this research agenda shows, Ventana Research will again provide the most authoritative education available on best practices and technology choices, all of it based on its painstaking research methodology and experience gained from a dozen years in the industry. Ventana Research has benchmarked tens of thousands of organizations over the last decade. Its research and education already is provided directly to a community of more than 250,000 members as well as to many more who receive research insights through its media partner network.

"In 2014 the technology industry began to realize the central importance of spending led and influenced by business units," said Mark Smith, CEO and chief research officer of Ventana Research. "This shift in influence and balance of technology power has now reached a point where IT must align to the business priorities to be a true partner. This change also has revealed that IT-focused analyst firms and their trend predictions built on IT-led perspectives do not represent the entire technology industry, let alone its customers. The need for practical guidance in business use of mobile technology, in how to engage employees through social collaboration or in where to use wearable computing are cutting-edge examples of where an approach focused on business and research like Ventana Research uses can result in smart deployment and significant savings of time, cost and valuable resources."

"Having a practical line-of-business context for processes and industry-specific aspects of an organization is essential to ensure objective technology guidance," Smith said. "That's why we are excited to provide our publicly available research agenda built on research and the actual evaluation of how technology is actually used to the broader market. We look at much more than future product roadmaps, vendor revenue or number of customers, focusing on critical business and technology factors like usability, manageability, reliability and adaptability to business."

Ventana Research's decade of market research enables it to fill the void for high-quality, fact-based research to inform and educate business and technology buyers and suppliers. The firm is proud to be recognized by the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) as a top independent analyst firm for 2014. It is the only technology analyst firm that publicly posts its research agenda and framework for an entire year. Just writing a research note or listing reports to be written does not make a research agenda; it fails to use a methodology that encompasses fact-based primary research and full product evaluations that discover the real needs and direction of business and IT. "This market- and primary research-based approach differentiates our firm from the spectrum of others," Smith added.

For more information about the research agenda, please visit www.ventanaresearch.com/researchagenda and download the research agendas for business and technology areas most important to your needs now and in the rest of the year. Look also for Ventana Research's daily benchmark research facts via its social media channel on Twitter at @VentanaResearch.

About Ventana Research
Ventana Research is the most authoritative and respected benchmark business technology research and advisory services firm. We provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies through a unique set of research-based offerings including benchmark research and technology evaluation assessments, education workshops and our research and advisory services, Ventana On-Demand. Our unparalleled understanding of the role of technology in optimizing business processes and performance and our best practices guidance are rooted in our rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions in every industry. This benchmark research plus our market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver education and expertise to our clients to increase the value they derive from technology investments while reducing time, cost and risk.

Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; business and IT professionals worldwide are members of our community and benefit from Ventana Research's insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe. Our views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. To learn how Ventana Research advances the maturity of organizations' use of information and technology through benchmark research, education and advisory services, visit www.ventanaresearch.com.

Media: Copies of the Value Index report and analyst interviews are available upon request.

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