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The Bloor Methodology
Bloor Research's whole ethos is to enable every organisation to optimise its IT investments. The way we do this is to:
- thoroughly research available IT products and how they are being used - through meetings with vendors, involvement in interactive events involving vendors and users, and feedback and analysis from industry including surveys
- research the industries and markets into which they are sold and their business drivers and needs
- consider market trends and new developments likely to shape future IT direction.
The above process is integrated and iterative, ensuring regular updates as products and markets progress. Your participation in this process will ensure your needs and capabilities are fully identified.
In addition, Bloor has been busy transforming our solutions to add to and improve the ways you can access our available research to meet your needs. More general feedback and authoritative opinion from Bloor analysts in their specialist areas comes by reference to their articles and blogs.
Bloor's Optimal Technology Framework (OTF)
considers technology as it applies to industry sectors
The Bloor methodology for researching products and markets is based on the new Bullseye™ open research framework from the Bullseye Foundation to which we subscribe. This provides a standard method of collecting and analysing product and vendor data and demands a very thorough, consistent and unbiased assessment of an IT sector, the vendors to it and their products.
The Bullseye approach begins by defining an optimal product for a sector - by considering criteria such as performance, scalability, value for money and geography (coverage). Each is given an importance weighting which will vary according to market needs and expectations, which is where Bloor's extensive knowledge of the market is brought to bear. Data gathered on the products is scored in each of the criteria to arrive at an overall product score. A schema spreadsheet is used to maintain the information and constantly track changes. A simple pictorial representation of the scores is a provided by a Bullseye chart which plots the position of each vendor/product - the nearer the centre the better - with champions, innovators, and challengers (the more mature products) also being shown.
Sample Bullseye (taken from Business Intelligence Report)
Once established, this becomes an iterative process so that, for instance, new products entering the market and new features to existing products can quickly be assessed and plotted, while the optimum product assessment may be refined through market and product advances. More subjective aspects are brought out in the reports detail. A two to three page Bloor Market Update is issued, for instance six-monthly, to pictorially represent and describe what recent changes have occurred in the market and products.
Bloor's research and analyses have been acknowledged internationally as amongst the most authoritative produced on computing and business issues. Through involvement with this rigorous and impartial analysis process, user organisations and vendors of all sizes are guaranteed easy-to-access research that is accurate, impartial - and directly applicable to their organisations.
If yours is an IT Vendor and your company wishes to be included in an existing Bullseye-based market analysis, or in being involved in a Bullseye analysis of a new market, please contact us to discuss this.