How To Read Gartner’s Magic Quadrants: 5 things you should know

Yesterday, Gartner published the 2018 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence….and the document already has a lot of vendors AND buyers scrambling. Jen Underwood and I are hosting a webinar next week to “demystify the quadrant”. You’re all invited. Just sign up here.

For the first time in recent history, Gartner dropped 4 vendors and placed one of the industry’s original vendors into the ‘challenger’ box. Most will say that ‘not much’ has changed. True if you focus on the top three players: Tableau, Microsoft and Qlik.

However, if you take a closer look, you’ll notice that some of the changes tell a pretty consistent story. I personally don’t envy my Gartner friends as they go through this exercise. Reducing an industry down to just a few vendors, while trying to help technology buyers make the right bet for their company is both a scary and complicated endeavor!

“Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

The document is full of insights and if you have the chance and time to read it, it’s a fascinating research piece. Here are a few things to consider when reading the magic quadrant.

1. Step back first: before jumping into the analysis provided for each vendor, take a holistic view of the quadrant. Study the Quadrant image and ask. Who’s new, Who’s been dropped…and why? Want something more sophisticated? Look at the 3-year-movement analysis table I published earlier here. (Remember: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”)
2. Read planning assumptions: this shouldn’t be too hard since the “Strategic Planning Assumptions” section is on the first page of the document. These assumptions give you a good sense for the context within which analysts are operating. Gartner analysts field thousands of customer queries a year. They pick up customer “themes” along the way. Educate yourself here so you can see the space through their eyes (or at least, attempt to! Gartner analysts are very smart). If you don’t have a ton of time, read my summary of this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant here.
3. Read the Evaluation Criteria Section: there you’ll understand the mental model analysts rely on as they evaluate the various vendors. Each vendor is evaluated against 8 criteria: market understanding, marketing strategy, sales strategy, product strategy, business model, vertical (or industry strategy) as well as innovation and geography strategy. Take a look at the weights assigned for each category and compare that to what matters the most to YOU. I can’t emphasize YOU more. The Magic Quadrant is a simplification tool that should help you guide your buying process. You need to relate the analysis to YOUR company, YOUR goals, YOUR environment, the skillset of YOUR team…and YOUR strategy.
4. Digest Gartner’s Market Overview: this is critical. This year, Gartner has identified 9 key trends. You’ll want to know what they are before you read the report. Again, they pick up these themes by talking to customers and vendors. You’ll want to make choices in the context of what others have done. I’ve highlighted some in this blog.
5. Consider Gartner’s “Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria”: the fact that Gartner didn’t include a vendor in their Quadrant doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look at them! It means that the vendor didn’t meet some of Gartner’s inclusion criteria. It could also and most likely mean that the vendor CHOSE to not be included. I have participated in many Gartner Magic Quadrant efforts while I was at BusinessObjects, Microsoft, Sisense and Alpine…and the effort is tremendous. This year for instance, the average number of customers provided by each vendor was 65+. Not every company has the time to go through the Gartner RFP process and is willing to ask their customers to fill out Gartner’s surveys and questionnaires.

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”

Once you’ve gone through the above 5 key steps, you’re now ready to pick apart your vendor of choice. Each vendor section is broken up in two sections: STRENGTH and CAUTIONS. I like to start with the CAUTION section…but that’s just me!

If you want to know more (or don’t have time to read Gartner’s 60-page-report), Jen Underwood and I are hosting a webinar next week to “demystify the quadrant”.

Also, if you have questions you’d like to submit, just put them down below in comments!