ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

We are happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Total Compensation Management 2023 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that reflect the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal to human capital...

Having just completed the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index for Total Compensation Management, We want to share some of my observations about how the market has advanced since our assessment three years ago. For more than two decades, Ventana Research has conducted market research in a spectrum of related areas including Total Compensation Management (TCM) as well as broader HCM areas ranging from employee experience, learning management, workforce management (WFM) to payroll management and...

Early last December, just before ChatGPT became the new, bright, shiny object, The Economist magazine ran a story proclaiming that we had finally arrived at the age of boring artificial intelligence (AI). From my perspective, it’s unfortunate that didn’t last and that AI has been relegated back to the buzzword league. AI will be an increasingly important feature of business software through the end of this decade. Ventana Research asserts that by 2026, almost all vendors of software designed...

Organizations looking to improve the customer experience and contact center operations should closely examine the processes at work in the front-end self-service environment. Technology advancements are converging at this gateway, including artificial intelligence, chatbots and knowledge management. The front end of the customer interaction offers a greater opportunity for customer engagement than most organizations realize.

As data continues to grow and evolve, organizations seek better tools and technologies to employ data faster and more efficiently. Finding and managing data remains a perennial challenge for most organizations, and is exacerbated by increasing volumes of data and an expanding array of data formats. At the same time, organizations must comply with a growing list of national and regional rules and regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act....

As a rule, I dislike terms like “digital finance transformation” because there’s a wave-the -magic-wand quality to it that obscures the not-so-simple people and process elements necessary for true transformation. Six of the most common – and expensive – words used in an accounting department are “we’ve always done it this way.” Persuading staff to change can be a struggle, even if change makes their jobs easier and more rewarding. Moreover, digital transformation must cover the data elements as...

Modern business relies on having a clear, continuous understanding of customer perceptions and intentions. That insight is increasingly used to deliver them experiences that they would consider excellent, in turn leading to higher satisfaction and more profitable relationships. Qualtrics, a provider of Experience Management (XM) software, focuses on creating applications that analyze customer interactions and feedback so that different teams across the enterprise can better identify...

At its March 2023 analyst conference, 8x8 described a significant pivot in its focus. Going forward the company will be emphasizing the Contact Center (CCaaS) side of its portfolio, which to this point has represented a small portion of its overall sales. It made several product announcements to bolster the argument that it can effectively meet the needs of complex contact center operations while continuing to provide business users with a UCaaS solution. The overall XCaaS platform is aimed at...

Organizations are continuously searching for new business opportunities hidden in their data. They are using various technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to uncover granular insights that can support decision-making. Existing tools and dashboards are effective for observing standard metrics; however, they do not address follow-up questions, such as why things are happening or how those events impact performance. Organizations also struggle to derive...

Success with streaming data and events requires a more holistic approach to managing and governing data in motion and data at rest. The use of streaming data and event processing has been part of the data landscape for many decades. For much of that time, data streaming was a niche activity, however, with standalone data streaming and event-processing projects run in parallel with existing batch-processing initiatives, utilizing operational and analytic data platforms. I noted that there has...