We’re excited to announce the release of our online research calendar, covering the scheduling of GigaOm Radar reports. These are practitioner-led technology evaluations based on a process akin to an end-user procurement decision—the end summary is a two-dimensional chart that will feel familiar to anyone who has worked with analysts before; but the content is targeted more at technologists looking to set a workable strategy, or make a practical deployment decision.
To deliver on this, our analysts kick off with a research outline to set the scope of the evaluation—this is a hugely important part of the analytical process, particularly as technology categories don’t stand still. They evolve, split, merge and converge, and sometimes defy expectations. You can see a good example of this in GigaOm analyst Dana Hernandez’ blog, “Intelligent Automation vs. Hyperautomation.”
At the same time, we set the table stakes and differentiating criteria for the technology category. These we send to qualifying vendors, requesting a briefing so we can run through how well their solution meets our criteria. In parallel, we draft what we call the Key Criteria report—this maps directly to the request for proposals (RFP) document an end-user organization might produce as part of its procurement process.
Once we get information from vendors, we score each solution and send the results back to the vendors for fact checking. If briefings were not available, we evaluate based on our own experience and publicly available information—reflecting what a buyer might do. We’ll send this for fact checking as well, though it should be noted that a vendor’s window to discuss the nuances of their product will be largely closed at this point!
Finally, we send the report to vendors for a five-day courtesy preview period before we publish. You can see the timings of these processes in the research calendar: kick-off, briefings, fact check, delivery, and publication. The report itself is available to our subscribers (at $14.95/month, it’s less than a gym membership), and vendors can also license the report.
That’s it for the process. As you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts behind the scenes, across over 100 technology categories! In scheduling, we look to avoid major public holidays, big events and conferences, and overlaps with schedules from other analyst firms. Our new research calendar covers the next six months, up to May 2024, and we expect to extend that in the coming months. For now, you can extrapolate current dates but do get in touch if you have any queries.
The new online schedule is just one part of GigaOm’s ongoing improvement efforts. Watch this space for the report enhancements and other process improvements we’re rolling out, based on GigaOm initiatives, and your feedback—always greatly appreciated and acted upon where possible. Hat tip to our own internal team who made this possible, and to our readers’ ongoing support. Onward and upward!