Forrester

We’ve been talking a lot about the security challenges with artificial intelligence at Forrester, specifically with generative AI (genAI). We’ve researched the buzz on AI PCs and think 2025 is when they’ll start to gain adoption. But what about mobile? Leading vendors such as Google and Samsung, as well as secondary players like OnePlus and Xiaomi, have already released local AI engines for their Android phones, while Apple has announced its Apple Intelligence offering that will be previewed this fall — not to mention the mobile assistants like Alexa, Bixby, Google, or Siri that use AI or the growing list of apps that involve various AI engines and large language models. As an enterprise security leader, how can you control these AI engines on your organization’s managed mobile devices? Right now, it’s a mix of good and not so good. On the not-so-good side, there are limitations on what can be disabled through unified endpoint management (UEM) platforms. Local AI engines on Android devices cannot currently be managed through UEM, and as of this writing, UEM vendors are unsure of what will be available to manage Apple Intelligence. OS developers Google and Apple, along with device manufacturers who customize the Android OS for their platforms such as Samsung, OnePlus, or Xiaomi, have not released the information that UEM vendors require to code this configuration option into their platforms. Administrators can block an on-device app package though. Being that Google Gemini Nano, for example, uses com.google.android.aicore, this associated package can be blocked through a manual app blocking and that would suffice. The news is better for AI assistants, which can be disabled through UEM settings or, as with Alexa, by disabling the application. This feature has been available for some time. Security pros who may be concerned about business data being leaked should understand how those AI assistants interact with business applications, messaging, and audio/video channels on corporate and personal devices and adjust the UEM settings accordingly to limit the risk. For other applications that may collect data to send off to third parties for processing, modern mobile threat defense (MTD) solutions can analyze applications on mobile devices and let security analysts know where the application data is going. Security teams can then determine risk levels for the apps and devices and either disable access to corporate resources until the risky applications are removed, in the case of bring-your-own-device situations, or apply UEM policies to disable these applications for corporate devices. The range of threats targeting mobile devices is quite extensive, and as AI is integrated into more applications and platforms, security pros will need to implement more controls to reduce the risk of sensitive data being compromised. For mobile, the OS developers such as Apple and Google along with the platform vendors all need to allow UEM platforms to implement policies on managed devices to limit the corporate data that gets collected by AI and allow MTD vendors insight so they can better secure the mobile ecosystem. Forrester customers who have questions or concerns about mobile security within their enterprise should reach out to schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me to review how you can better protect your business resources. source

Forrester’s Technology Strategy Impact Award seeks to recognize technology teams that have adopted high-performance technology strategies, enabling their firms to deliver on business outcomes through technology. The winner and finalists for the 2024 Technology Strategy Impact Award in APAC have built the right technology capabilities that align with their business capability needs and have done so in a highly trusted and adaptive manner. Congratulations to Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services group (Macquarie BFS), this year’s winner, and the two finalists: Singtel and Tabcorp. Macquarie BFS: Delivering Business Outcomes With A High-Performance IT Strategy Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services group (BFS) is the retail banking and wealth management business of Macquarie Group and serves approximately 1.85 million customers in Australia, with total deposits of $A145.3 billion and a home loan portfolio of $A123.7 billion, as of June 30, 2024. Macquarie BFS is bringing the culture of technology companies to financial services and intends to keep technology at the core of everything to deliver the best digital experience to its customers and drive alignment to that business vision. Macquarie BFS’s key tenets of its high-performance technology strategy that underpins this success are: Scoring high on alignment, trust, and adaptivity. Macquarie BFS follows the tenets of “always on” and the “speed of now,” just like big tech. Its BFS control-tower approach, as well as the technology team using business objectives in their OKRs, drives strong alignment with the business. Its software development platform follows agile enterprise practices, leveraging a flexible architecture that helps them deliver business apps at high speed to drive adaptivity. Its 96% cloud adoption, following site reliability engineering (SRE) standards, drives trust inside-out. There is much more to be impressed with in terms of Macquarie BFS’s tech capabilities. Focusing on just the right style. Macquarie BFS has a strong focus on cocreation. This is extremely difficult to achieve but is what banking business typically needs. Macquarie BFS’s investment in the right tools and practices allows it to cocreate fast, but this is only possible because it has optimized investment on enabling activities, thanks to smart investments in a set of capabilities such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), SRE, quality, cloud, and SecOps. It also has just the right focus on amplification through its investments in AI and automation. To hear more about Macquarie BFS’s technology journey, attend Forrester’s Technology & Innovation Summit APAC, October 29 in Sydney. Presenters from Macquarie BFS will be sharing more about its technology strategy in a keynote session. Singtel: IT Becomes A Strategic Business Enabler Singtel’s story of transformation is utterly impressive. It was dealing with a legacy core, had surging business enablement demand, and was working in an overly complex organization to boot, but it was able to turn around and transition from just a connectivity provider to a trusted business-technology enabler: Singtel is experiencing improved alignment and trust. Singtel identified and prioritized initiatives in order to boost alignment between the business and IT teams. It adopted and enhanced its practices around project management, change advisory, and architecture/solution review, introducing transparent reporting to drive greater synergies. It drove adaptivity in the way it skilled, hired, and deployed the right talent flexibly across its requirements. It is enabling and amplifying business capabilities. Singtel has done extensive work in remediating tech obsolescence, improving service resiliency, and building intelligent operations and cybersecurity practices. It has also been investing in tech to improve customer experience (CX) to amplify and scale its customer-facing services through chatbots, call summarization, and post-call analysis, among other things. The better alignment between the teams has significantly improved its time to market on new initiatives such as the new iPhone launch across various markets, new eSim launch, and the launch of a B2B marketplace. As a result, Singtel has won many accolades in recognition of improved digital experience. Overall, this is a fascinating story of change in terms of the way Singtel’s consumer and enterprise businesses work closely with their technology teams while still being part of the agile squads. Tabcorp: Leading The Industry With A Data Acceleration Initiative Melbourne-based Tabcorp is Australia’s largest gambling and gaming services provider. It has more than 800,000 active customers and covers more than 4,000 venues. Tabcorp embarked upon what it calls a data acceleration initiative in early 2024 to enable omnichannel, connected CX, and real-time business insights powered by data as a service. Tabcorp’s main focus areas in this regard were as follows: Driving trust and resilience. This data initiative centers around creating a single view of customers, building AI-led personalization at scale, and using a resilient architecture to build trust across customers, the business, and external partners. In the process, it simplified the architecture and significantly reduced legacy reporting, driving down the total cost of ownership. Business and IT worked together to identify the metrics that matter and built pipelines from trusted sources of data into an information model that it co-created with the business. Amplifying business outcomes. Tabcorp’s data acceleration initiative is a wonderful example of how the right application of data, AI, and personalization at scale can amplify your business outcomes. Tabcorp is powering several use cases around personalization, recommendation, the next best action, discovery, campaigns, and conversations. On the other side, this initiative is driving Tabcorp to build a highly resilient, automated, and efficient infrastructure to enable scale. These lessons, combined with other initiatives, are leading to an all-around improvement in IT performance. There is so much more to talk about in terms of how Tabcorp is building a highly adaptive IT organization running on agile practices, leveraging a strong enterprise architecture framework that allows it to reorient itself to new priorities swiftly and deliver to business outcomes. The announcement of our APAC winner and finalists concludes Forrester’s Technology Strategy Impact (TSI) Awards for this year. But you can learn more about their winning secrets by attending Forrester’s Technology & Innovation Summit APAC, taking place in Sydney and digitally, October 29, 2024. We look forward to

Site search provides one of the best customer engagement tools in a retailer’s toolbox. As shoppers shift to holiday buying, adapt to their needs to capitalize on the season. Start by tuning up your search engines for the holidays. You’ll need to adjust your solution now — and throughout the season — to keep pace with: Seasonal changes in product relevance. Your shoppers will be hunting for different types of products this time of year compared with their historical shopping history. Optimize your product data to help them find what they need — and what they didn’t know they needed. Retailers and brands will shift from featuring cotton sheets to warm comforters, tank tops to long sleeves, grilling ingredients to hearty soups, SPF skincare to deep moisturizers, and vitamins to medicine. Behavioral and mindset changes. Consumers start gift shopping early in the season: In 2023, 23% of US online adults started their shopping before November. In 2024, 71% of US shoppers plan to watch for deals and special offers online, but many are in the mood to splurge: 25% of US online adults are planning to spend more this year than they did last year. Expect changes in even your most loyal customers’ behavior. Frugal shoppers might become generously open to pricier items for gifting. Savvy shoppers might need more information as they select gift items with which they’re not familiar. Tune your search to create a mixed assortment of pricier items and deals, offer paths to purchase with educational content, and recommend giftable goods to guide shoppers. The shift from personal-preference to recipient needs. Your customers are shopping for others, not themselves (as much). Don’t over-rely on your customer’s recent purchase history or established preferences — they may be looking for entirely different categories and items as gifts. Even locations will change; the customer who usually prefers in-store pickup at a specific location suddenly may be ordering to multiple far-away shipping destinations. One-quarter of US online adults plan to use “buy online, pick up in store” offerings this holiday season, per Forrester’s July 2024 Consumer Pulse Survey. Ensure that consumers can filter their product search results not only by traditional sizing and colors but by factors such as fulfillment options, allergens, or brand and product preferences. The more granularly a shopper can filter their results, the better the experience it is for them to find the items they are looking for. Want to continue the conversation about optimizing product discovery and site search for the upcoming holiday season? Book an inquiry or guidance session here, and continue to gear up for the holiday season with Forrester’s 2024 Holiday Prep series. (coauthored with Senior Research Associate Delilah Gonzalez) source

As a leader of your technology organization, you most likely face the perennial measurement issue of misalignment. This misalignment manifests in various ways, differing in scope and intensity. One of the most critical areas where this shows up, however, is metrics. Tech leaders often grapple with finding a measurement approach that drives alignment. Why does this matter? According to Forrester, companies with high alignment experience nearly twice as much revenue growth compared to those without it. The most common misalignments we’ve identified include the following: There’s a lack of linkages between technology metrics and organizational strategic goals. This stems from the traditional approach of measuring tech success with an inward focus instead of being business- and customer-led. Portfolio performance indicators such as being on schedule and on budget are important but are operationally oriented and don’t reflect how they link to quantifiable customer and business outcomes that are crucial to achieving your overall organization’s strategic goals. Your tech metrics and your peers’ metrics are out of sync. Your peers such as the chief marketing officer, chief data officer, or chief experience officer have their own metrics, and more often than not, your metrics look very different or speak a different language compared to theirs. This becomes problematic over time with value capture, leading to a struggle to articulate how the tech organization helps your peers achieve their goals and eventually drive business success. Worse still, sometimes misalignment might lead to conflicts; for instance, the tech team might have minimizing error rates as a metric, which could lead developers to create additional, sometimes onerous, verification steps, thereby increasing customer effort to complete tasks. Your tech metrics are driving the wrong behaviors and actions, creating a disconnect between intended and actual outcomes. It’s important to evaluate the potential behaviors and actions that your metric could drive across your tech organization to avoid unintended consequences. For instance, to maintain cost effectiveness and efficiency, number of tickets closed and time to resolution are common metrics that tech organizations track. But an emphasis on these metrics could lead to bad outcomes; tech teams are likely to rush through issues and provide superficial fixes, rather than holistic ones (which would take a longer time) that would prevent issues from happening in the first place. The result is that issues continue to linger and possibly create bigger organizational inefficiencies. Join me at my session, “Align Tech Success With Metrics That Matter,” at Forrester’s Technology & Innovation Summit APAC on October 29 in Sydney (and digitally) to: Understand how your peers are measuring tech success and the key areas of misalignment. Learn the five principles of effective measurement. Uncover how you can drive alignment to ensure tech success. source

It’s been a banner year for healthcare, and not in a good way. As a healthcare provider, if your patients had trouble filling a prescription, if your organization struggled to submit claims to generate much-needed revenue, or if your organization had to ask a patient to reschedule a non-essential medical procedure, then you are likely a casualty of healthcare concentration risk. Concentration is a type of systemic (external) risk that occurs when extreme dependencies within an organization’s business, operating, or commercial model create a single point of failure. When a systemic risk event for healthcare occurs, it sets off a chain of failures and disruptions with negative implications for healthcare organizations (HCOs) and dire consequences for patients. You don’t need to understand concentration risk for your organization to be impacted by it, but it won’t get better until you do. In our new report, Concentration Risk In Healthcare, we outline the necessary steps that HCOs must take to identify and mitigate healthcare concentration risk in five key areas. Avoid These Five Sources Of Concentration Risk We’ve previously written about how HCOs must take proactive action against concentration risk and how oligopolies in the pharmacy benefit manager market, for example, accelerate the spread of medical deserts. To be resilient in response to disruptions caused by natural events, market conditions, or other systemic risks, HCOs must identify and mitigate concentration risk in five common areas or suffer the consequences of lost revenue, reputational damage, and, at worst, putting lives at risk: Labor. The existing labor supply and demand problem in healthcare will only intensify as the patient population grows and ages. The skills and knowledge gap, left behind by retiring clinicians and changes in training practices, further exacerbates this issue. Additionally, as reliance on technology increases, critical documentation skills are often missing during cybersecurity crises or routine downtimes. HCOs must prioritize flexible staffing solutions and knowledge transfer. Technology. Overreliance on a single technology vendor can leave HCOs vulnerable to data breaches and service disruptions, especially when electronic medical records and telehealth services are indispensable. HCOs must diversify their technology partnerships, ensure interoperability between systems, and establish robust cybersecurity measures. Artificial intelligence. Dependence on AI algorithms for critical decision-making processes, such as prior authorization, can lead to wrongful denial of care in favor of speed and cost-cutting. HCOs must balance AI innovation with proper precautions and guardrails. Data. Relying on limited or biased datasets for decision-making, research, and AI training can introduce biases into patient care, thereby perpetuating existing inequities. Don’t limit the effectiveness of emerging healthcare technologies. HCOs must aim to collect and utilize diverse datasets and implement rigorous data governance practices. Monopolies and oligopolies. When only a few big players dominate a market, customers can suffer if a disruption causes major shortages. Hurricane Helene’s damage of a single North Carolina plant that is responsible for 60% of the nation’s IV fluid production has hospitals nationwide experiencing a shortage, which is likely to be exacerbated by Hurricane Milton. This concentration of power in the hands of a few large entities can reduce competition, increase prices, and hinder innovation, leading to a complacent focus on incremental improvements rather than resilience. HCOs must identify single points of failure resulting from monopolies and oligopolies and develop mitigation strategies at the enterprise level. Don’t Wait For Disaster: Act Now To Mitigate Concentration Risk Read the full report to dive deeper into identification techniques and effective mitigation strategies. Forrester clients should schedule an inquiry or guidance session with Alla Valente and Arielle Trzcinski to discuss how you can protect your organization from the fallout of concentration risk. Tiffany Do contributed to this blog post. source

US healthcare industry giant CVS Health is considering a strategic breakup of its retail and insurance units. A potential split would mark a significant shift in the company’s “one-stop shop” strategy that it has already invested billions in to realize. Its vision to date has been to create a seamless healthcare experience for consumers and employers by integrating its retail pharmacy, health services, and insurance segments. What’s Happened: Financial Woes Across A Complex Portfolio Cornered CVS CVS is under pressure from investors to improve its financial performance. As CVS CEO Karen Lynch explained in the Q3 2024 earnings call, the company has developed a multiyear plan to generate as much as $2 billion in savings by “ … continuing to rationalize our business portfolio and accelerating the use of artificial intelligence and automation across the enterprise as we consolidate and integrate.” A WARN filing prompted the company to share that this also includes reducing its workforce by nearly 2,900 employees. In recent months, challenges have mounted across the CVS portfolio — and also highlighted its strongest assets. Health insurance carrier Aetna is ailing as more members resume using medical services. CVS’s 2018 acquisition of Aetna aimed to create a healthcare powerhouse but has since encountered significant integration challenges while at the same time facing scrutiny over the vertical integration of the portfolio. In 2024, CVS to date has cut its earnings guidance three times due to escalating medical costs pressuring Aetna’s bottom line. One culprit: Post-pandemic, Medicare Advantage beneficiaries have resumed using medical services and visits to the doctor. Former Aetna President Brian Kane is now gone. But costs from Medicare Advantage plans will continue to skyrocket due to utilization and newly included benefits that have become table stakes for seniors. Pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) prosperity faces potential pitfalls. 2024 began with the loss of large, long-tenured clients, including employer Tyson Foods and narrowed business with health insurer Blue Shield of California. Midyear, the FTC called PBMs manipulative middlemen and highlighted their role in spreading medical deserts. In September, the FTC filed action against CVS Health’s PBM, Caremark Rx, with allegations of the PBM and its competitors engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices. These methods reportedly artificially inflated the list prices of insulin drugs, restricted patient access to lower-priced options, and shifted the burden of high insulin costs onto vulnerable patients. The suit builds on industry concerns regarding concentration risk in the PBM market. Retail stores provide a sturdy stronghold. CVS has over 9,000 physical locations in the US. Per Definitive Healthcare’s ClinicView, as of 2023, CVS also holds over 60% of the US retail clinic market. In Q3 2024, CVS’s retail clinics outperformed other business segments, benefiting from competitors’ retreats, such as Walmart’s exit due to lack of profitability and Walgreens’ shift to specialty pharmacy expansion. CVS’s digital experience enhancements and broader in-store services, especially for chronic conditions and mental health, have boosted sustained customer engagement and retention. Services like vaccinations continue to provide an (ongoing) one-time revenue boost and remind customers of the available convenient care options in their local store. What A Breakup Would Mean For Key Stakeholders While CVS is distracted pondering its next moves, competitors in the health insurance and pharmacy space should position themselves to take market share now. If a breakup plays out, we may see greater focus within each of the (erstwhile) CVS business units. Unlocking financial gains through technological advances, however, will take time and could lead to: Health insurers picking up new populations. If Aetna becomes independent, expect some of its members to shop around for new insurers. After all, Aetna’s synergy with CVS was one of its key selling points. Competitors should highlight established adoption of emerging technologies such as generative AI, proof of efficiencies that reduce administrative burden for providers, and care advocacy services that drive member trust and appropriate utilization of healthcare services. Retail pharmacies expanding services. If a breakup happens, expect retail competitors to try to poach CVS shoppers with expanded pharmacy services like home delivery and virtual consults. We expect retailers like Amazon and Walmart to make prescription transfers easy to execute and to market price transparency and better prescription drug pricing that benefits consumers. Degradation in the consumer experience. Consumers have benefited from the vertical integration of the PBM and retail pharmacy. Dismantling this connection would lead to disjointed experiences and push employers with frustrated employees into the open arms of competitors that have preserved their integration, such as UnitedHealthcare or Cigna. One CVS group could come out ahead in a breakup: CVS’s Caremark PBM. As all PBMs face regulatory scrutiny over concentration risk, a breakup could actually put CVS ahead of the curve. We will continue to watch as this potential strategic shift evolves. Forrester clients can schedule time with us — Arielle Trzcinski and Sucharita Kodali — to talk more about the future of health insurance and retail health. source

While Corpay had seen tremendous growth in inbound/digital sales results, the inbound leads team had a static conversion rate that wasn’t hitting revenue targets. Corpay went through a series of steps to improve these issues. It identified key gaps that could be solved with technology. A lead routing and scoring tool was implemented to move leads with the highest likelihood to close to the front of the queue, and a sales cadence tool was added to engage buyers that had the highest probability of success. A duplicate detection tool was also implemented that reduced the number of duplicates a seller had to sort through to find an active lead. Yet despite these process and technology changes, performance hadn’t improved enough. Further analysis showed that compensation plans weren’t aligned to desired outcomes, meaning sellers used less efficient approaches because it led to better compensation. Corpay analyzed the inbound lead team’s performance and determined that sales compensation was the primary reason for their lack of improvement. It identified four issues: Misaligned compensation plans. The compensation mechanics built into Corpay’s legacy compensation plans weren’t aligned with revenue generation because of the gap between what generates revenue and how sellers are paid. The plan couldn’t adapt to market changes. Fuel cards, the sales team’s primary product offering, depend on macroeconomic factors that have extreme swings in demand based on fuel prices. Sellers didn’t have visibility on how they were performing. The measures in the plan were difficult to understand and lacked reporting for showing performance compared to quotas. Organizational structure made it hard to create plans. The responsibilities of inside sellers weren’t aligned to what the teams could control, leading to complex, hard-to-understand plans that were misaligned with roles. Corpay realized that if it wanted to achieve the benefits of its process changes, then changing its compensation plans was needed. To affect the outcome, Corpay redesigned its compensation plan to align with desired business goals by: Identifying the best measure. While revenue was the goal, the measure that most closely aligned to revenue growth for the leads team was converted leads. Moving to quarterly quotas. Attainment data showed annual quotas weren’t working because of the highly cyclical nature of the fuel card business. Transitioning to quarterly quotas allowed the company to account for market dynamics and set more accurate quotas. Implementing new mechanics. Another challenge with the compensation plan was the lack of urgency to close sales at the end of a month or quarter. Legacy plan structures didn’t motivate sellers to push hard to maximize sales at the end of each month. Therefore, a unit-based/tiered method was introduced to incentivize maximizing each month’s revenue. Realigning focus to the best opportunities. The legacy plan incentivized sellers to continue to chase old leads despite low close rates compared to new leads. This measure was removed to focus on leads that gave sellers the best chance of maximizing in-month goals. The new compensation plan led to the lead conversion rate improving 40%–50%, resulting in additional multimillions in incremental annual revenue per year. Compensation isn’t the solution to every sales challenge. It can become a problem if companies try to use it to solve the wrong problems. When applied in the right way, however, it has a significant impact. Want to learn more about how we help clients optimize their compensation challenges? Reach out to Forrester. source

Choice Is A Mirage Well, sort of. Customers still want choice, and networking vendors claim to offer it. But this isn’t my first rodeo. When I see “choice” claims from vendors, I see it as just marketing’s way of saying that it’s a messy product portfolio. I’m not innocent. When I worked at Cisco and HP ProCurve, I mentioned “choice” during briefings and presentations countless times. At one point or another, every single traditional networking vendor used the tagline to make up the excuse for having multiple product lines. In reality, it’s just the aftermath of internal developments or acquisitions. To react quickly to market changes, vendor execs find it quicker and easier to do one of the following: 1) develop a new product with almost zero backward compatibility with previous hardware or solutions, instead of evolving an existing one that supports a seamless transition, such as Huawei’s first- and second-generation Wi-Fi or 2) buy another company, such as Juniper Networks’ acquisition of Mist Systems. There is nothing wrong with companies starting new product lines or acquiring companies to expand their portfolio. These tactics should give customers choices on different architectures or approaches to solving a problem based on their needs or abilities. But customers don’t actually get a real choice, because it’s too costly for vendors to manage two or more product lines that produce the same results. Most of the time, the vendors are offering: 1) a new product line with new capabilities that will be supported for a long time with new enhancements and 2) a legacy solution with a short shelf life. As an example, in the past networking vendors retired their controllerless product lines in favor of controller-based ones. To actually deliver on choice, customers expect to be able to choose solutions with all things being equal, such as support, longevity, future feature enhancement, etc., between the product lines. Why Bring This Up? Early this year, I commented on the HPE and Juniper acquisition. I said that Juniper was bringing HPE many components (such as a data-center-quality switch and operating system, cloud-based management system, sophisticated networking AI, and telecom product line). But there was a lot of overlap between the two companies, and ultimately, executives should eliminate a lot of product lines, mostly on the Aruba side. It seems that I’m not the only one with this opinion. I’ve spoken with technology teams at retailers, hoteliers, and manufacturers that have or are in the process of considering these vendors; they’ve reinforced their concerns about the longevity of the product lines from HPE and Juniper. And most recently, Cisco’s CFO reiterated this in a SDxCentral article by saying that the market was showing some uncertainty with those vendors. And although we are quick to dismiss competitive conjecture, this claim seems to have some merit. Since the announcement, Arista Networks has seen their networking revenue grow quarter-over-quarter for the last two quarters; Cisco and Huawei grew their network product revenue this last quarter while Juniper and HPE Aruba have declined for the past two straight quarters. While HPE and Juniper can’t get into the specifics around the future of product lines due to regulatory constraints, is HPE acknowledging the problem of overlap? No. HPE executives are doubling down on the importance of customer choice rather than acknowledging there is any overlap or the overlap as problematic. Like it or not, tough decisions will need to be made and the Band-Aid must be ripped off. This is a critical time for many networking organizations, and bad investments can cripple digital initiatives. These orgs are amid three major transitions: virtual network infrastructure (VNI), business-optimized networks (BONs), and blending security and networking together into Zero Trust edge (ZTE). To land these transformations, organizations must empower business units and non-IT employees to manage networks via a businesswide networking fabric. The emergence of businesswide networking fabrics to support digital businesses requires cloud-based management solutions, augmented by AI, for local area networks (LAN), wireless, wide area networks (WAN), and cloud networks. Networking teams don’t have the resources, skills, or time to try to make different products from the same vendor, such as HPE Aruba Central, Juniper Apstra, and Juniper Mist, work together with half a dozen operating systems. Case in point? ZTE. Customers are tired of integrating security and network solutions. They are opting for solutions that blend these capabilities together. This is why HPE and Juniper competitors’ networking has made major changes in their strategies: Cisco has started to pivot and is combining once-disparate product lines under Meraki and its data center cloud management system. Extreme Networks has been quietly doing the same thing over the last five years by integrating Avaya, Enterasys, Extreme, Brocade, and Foundry, to name a few, into Extreme’s single-cloud-based management for wired and wireless. Many business and technology leaders are realizing that the network is critical to the success of business digitalization and need strategic partners to ensure a BON. Strategic vendors should not only provide more products and assistance during a business boom but also help eliminate waste and unused infrastructure during times of operational changes, such as infrastructure alterations. A partnership includes mutual vulnerability and risk-sharing. HPE and Juniper must do better than providing choice, or they will be left behind. The new executive team after the merger needs to be up-front about the future of product lines since the current executives can’t do it until the deal closes because of regulatory rules. Customers know that certain ones will go away, so to be a good strategic, not transactional, partner, HPE should work with customers to create a transition plan that fairly balances the cost to customers for the disruption and evolution that the HPE-Juniper merger is creating. I daresay networking hasn’t been this exciting in years. Keep an eye out for the report, “The State Of IT Networks, 2024.” It should be on the website in a few weeks. And as always, please share your thoughts with me. If you are a Forrester client

Marketers constantly ask how AI will shape content strategy and creation and improve business impact. Today’s announcement that Siteimprove is acquiring MarketMuse provides one potential answer, pointing to a new era with an AI-driven approach to the content lifecycle. Marketers will soon be able to create high-quality, discoverable content that engages audiences and delivers measurable business results. Integrating Content Strategy, SEO, And Accessibility Matters Despite advancements in digital marketing, many B2B marketers struggle with inefficiencies throughout the content lifecycle. Decision-making about what content to create or update often relies on subjective judgment rather than data, resulting in wasted efforts and missed opportunities to engage audiences. Content creation workflows also remain inefficient, with SEO frequently treated as an afterthought rather than a core component from the start. And without a deliberate, inclusive approach, accessibility is overlooked, preventing content from reaching its full potential. The combination of Siteimprove and MarketMuse shows promise in closing these gaps to ensure that marketers’ efforts work together and deliver higher return at a lower cost. In an AI-driven future, marketers will transform their content strategy by: Prioritizing content efforts with quality data and analysis. Platforms such as the combined Siteimprove and MarketMuse will allow you to analyze their website and search engine results, along with competitor content and rankings. With this data, you can quickly create a plan that identifies what content is needed, how much to produce, and when to update it — ensuring a more targeted and efficient content strategy. Incorporating SEO best practices into content development processes. Optimize your content for user intent, traditional search engines, and AI-powered platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. By embedding SEO throughout the content creation cycle, you make every piece of content resonate with your audience and rank effectively across both traditional and AI-driven search environments. Owning topical authority and ensuring content accessibility. Establishing your brand as a topical authority not only expands your reach but also strengthens your credibility. By combining expertise with accessibility, making your content usable by all audiences, you boost your chances of appearing in search-generative results. This dual focus on authority and inclusivity enhances brand reputation and drives conversions, ensuring that your content is both impactful and widely discoverable. Aligning cross-functional expectations with clear content briefs. Provide content creators with detailed briefs that outline specific topics, competitor insights, and strategic goals. This helps creators focus on delivering content that audiences value, rather than being left guessing, filling gaps with purpose and precision. Avoid inefficient review cycles and unnecessary rewrites with clearer direction at the content brief stage. A Case For Tech Stack Unification As generative AI reshapes what’s possible in marketing, many companies will move toward tech stack unification to streamline their processes and improve efficiency. For B2B marketers, this means consolidating the tools they use and considering whether an all-in-one platform that integrates content planning, creation, SEO, and marketing performance tracking can better meet their needs. With the combined capabilities of Siteimprove and MarketMuse, the opportunity to step into the future content lifecycle is here. Having AI-driven insights directly in the content management system empowers marketers to work with greater clarity, speed, and impact. We’re here to help you transform your content strategy and content creation process to better engage your audiences. If you’re a Forrester client and want help evaluating your tech stack, refining your workflows, or assessing your team’s readiness for AI-driven approaches to content, connect with your account team or schedule a guidance session today. source

To assess how well brokerage firms acquire customers looking for self-directed investment accounts, we recently kicked off our first investing sales Forrester Digital Experience Review™ (DXR). We will evaluate the functionality and user experience of 13 North American websites that target new self-directed investors. This review follows those we’ve previously done for mobile app experiences in North America and desktop experiences in the US and Canada. This research will cover the first stages of the customer lifecycle: discover, evaluate, commit, and initiate (onboarding). The DXR methodology evaluates a brokerage firm’s website through the lens of a prospect who is looking to open a brokerage account, scoring the site across 26 criteria spanning four of the digital experience categories in the Forrester Customer Lifecycle Framework. As part of this research, we will also create a functionality assessment tool. Digital leaders and their teams can use this tool to identify areas for improvement in their prospects’ digital journeys. By assessing elements of the digital experience yourself, you will be able to gauge the quality of your offerings versus our criteria. A heatmap in the tool will highlight areas of strength and weakness. Here is the tool we created as part of our most recent Digital Experience Review of mobile investing apps. Forrester clients can schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me to discuss how they can enhance the digital functionality of their desktop and app experiences. source