Keith Shaw: Hi, everybody. Welcome to DEMO, the show where companies come in and show us their latest products and platforms. Today, I’m joined by Jim Spare. He is the Chief Product Officer at IDC. Welcome to the show, Jim. Jim Spare: Yeah, thank you very much.
Keith: IDC — we used to be connected to you guys as well — and IDC is known as an analyst firm. You’re not really known for products. So why are you here on DEMO? What are you going to show us today?
Jim: Well, as a global market research firm, we have worldwide coverage of technology markets, products, and vendors. And as a market intelligence company, we’re constantly looking at new and better ways to serve our customers.
One of those ways is to serve them in a more interactive and digital format. So we’re building digital platforms that take advantage of artificial intelligence and enable us to harness all our knowledge and deliver it to customers in a customized digital form.
The name of this is IDC TechMatch. Keith: So who is IDC TechMatch designed for? Is it everyone within the enterprise, or is there a specific role within a company that’s really going to benefit from this?
Jim: Yeah, we focus IDC TechMatch — a platform that enables IT leaders to make decisions quickly and confidently when picking the right software for their business purpose.
Typically, that’s the CIO, head of enterprise applications, head of procurement, or even the CFO’s office — people who typically get involved in software sourcing and selection decisions. That’s who the platform is targeted at. Keith: What’s the main problem you’re solving for these groups of people?
Jim: Today, the way most organizations source and select software is long, complex, and frustrating for everyone involved. These processes can take up to six months to make a decision on the right software.
So we’re offering these organizations an opportunity to accelerate that software sourcing process while also accessing world-class market intelligence so IT executives can make confident decisions. Keith: And what would companies be doing without this?
I always think of that infomercial with someone struggling in black and white, and then the world of color opens up. It sounds like without this, companies would be doing a lot of searching, using tabs and spreadsheets… Jim: Yeah — spreadsheets, endless lists of requirements, some web research.
And of course now, LLMs can help, but where do they collect the data from? There’s a lot of internal work and unscientific, hamster-wheel-type efforts to figure out what software is right for business purposes.
