• IDC Insights:

    Industry Focus:

    • Energy
    • Financial
    • Government
    • Health
    • Manufacturing
    • Retail

    IDC Insights lines of business assist businesses and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research and analysis is focused on mitigating technology risks and maximizing the effectiveness of IT investments.

  • ENERGY

    Areas of expertise:

    • Smart Grid
    • Clean Energy
    • Intelligent Oil & Gas

    IDC Energy Insights assists energy businesses and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the utility and oil & gas industries.

  • FINANCIAL

    Areas of expertise:

    • Mobile Banking and Payment
    • Enterprise Risk Management
    • Cash Management & Liquidity
    • Buy Side Operations

    IDC Financial Insights assists financial services business and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the banking, insurance, and securities and investments industries.

  • GOVERNMENT

    Areas of expertise:

    • Infrastructure Consolidation
    • Open Government

    IDC Government Insights assists Government and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the Federal/Central and local/provincial Governments.

  • HEALTH

    Areas of expertise:

    • EMR and EHR for Providers
    • Connected Health
    • Healthcare Industry Reform
    • Life Sciences Value Chain

    IDC Health Insights assists health businesses and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the payer, provider and life sciences industries.

  • MANUFACTURING

    Areas of expertise:

    • Supply Chain Modernization
    • Next Generation Product Lifecycle Management
    • Operational Technology

    IDC Manufacturing Insights assists manufacturing businesses and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues associated with design, development and distribution of goods across markets.

  • RETAIL

    Areas of expertise:

    • Retail PLM and Sourcing Optimization
    • Customer Experience (Retail Omnichannel)
    • Merchandising Strategies

    IDC Retail Insights assists retail businesses and IT leaders in making more effective technology decisions by providing insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the retail industry.

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IDC Research Types
· Analyst · Newsletters
· Audio · Pivot Table
· Briefs · Presentations
· Daily and Weekly Graphics · Press Releases
· Event Proceedings · Product Information (Fact Sheet)
· Events · Studies
· IDC Links · Prediction
· Insights-only Research  


Analyst
Analyst Profile
Provides complete background information on an IDC analyst. Each profile provides a biography, a notable quotation, a frequently asked question relevant to the particular analyst's focus, and a list of research authored by that analyst.
Team Profile
Lists the analyst members of a topical team. Outlines general areas of coverage and any specialties
Audio
IDC Audio is an insightful 10- to 15-minute moderated analyst discussion with opinions on some of the industry's most pressing and timely topics. Three IDC Audio types - Flash, 360degrees, and Sales Force Readiness - are downloadable to your computer or mobile device.
IDC Audio: Flash
Provides market intelligence and product marketing with IDC's analysis of a technology event or product announcement. Frames the event context and outlines IDC's opinion regarding the near- and long-term impact for technology vendors and buyers.
IDC Audio: Behind the Opinion
 Gives senior executives and strategic planners insight into why and how IDC arrived at an opinion on an emerging technology, technology issue, or important trend. It provides supporting evidence and the thought process that lead to the conclusion.
IDC Audio: Sales Force Readiness
Provides sales executives and field sales with information and analysis to "get smart" on an industry, technology, or solution. It addresses customer pain points, purchasing behavior, and perceptions of IT vendors.
IDC Audio: 360°
Gives a 360-degree view of a current news issue, announcement, or innovation. It frames the topic and outlines IDC's opinion about the near- and long-term impact for vendors and customers.
Briefs
Event Flash
Provides rapid IDC insight and analysis about a significant industry event or conference, merger or acquisition, product announcement, or other fast-breaking news affecting the IT market.
Excerpt
Provides several pages of coverage and analysis of tailored IDC research that a customer has purchased through volume sales. Commissioned by GMS, it consists of either an Insight, a Study, or a section of a Study that is modified per customer requirements.
Executive Insights
A thought-leadership piece authored only by Frank Gens for IDC.
Featured Research
Provides an overview of an important report with information about the analyst(s), market coverage, and summaries.
Financial Flash
Provides rapid IDC insight and analysis about a company's financials.
Forecast Update
Provides a short, quick look at an updated forecast and the changed assumptions behind the update. It updates a market forecast published in the same calendar year; identifies changed and new key forecast assumptions; and highlights actions for participants to consider in light of the changes.
IDC Insight
Coverage and analysis of an industry event, new product or service, or a company announcement or development.
Product Flash
Provides rapid IDC insight and analysis about a significant industry event or conference, merger or acquisition, product announcement, or other fast-breaking news affecting the IT market.
Update
A brief overview coverage of what is happening in a market.
Vendor Profiles
 Concise, hard-hitting profiles of emerging vendors. These profiles will highlight new players and technologies, and the potential paradigm shifts or disruptions these vendors represent.
Viewpoint
A short, timely opinion piece from IDC's analysts focusing on a single industry happening or trend.
Daily and Weekly Graphics
Daily Graphic
Illustrates IDC's keen analysis of major market trends in downloadable PowerPoints. Available as a free download the day it appears, the IDC Daily Graphic provides valuable material for speeches and strategic planning.
Event Proceedings
Event Proceedings
Published slides, audio and other materials from IDC and Insight web conferences, briefings, forums or other events.
Events
Briefing
Conference
IDC conferences deliver dependable, relevant, and high-impact data and insight to help organizations make sound business and technology decisions. eBusiness executives, IT professionals, IT suppliers, and services suppliers benefit from the strategic insight and networking opportunities these major events offer. Generally, all presentation slides are available online, and for most conferences, streaming audio of key discussions is available as well.
Industry Event
An Industry Event features IDC or Insight analysts but is not produced by IDC. Registration and material delivery is conducted by a third party.
Local Conference
IDC's local events, held throughout Europe and Asia Pacific, are extremely focused conferences that target technology and new market areas specific to the regional level.
Private Workshop
IDC's private workshops combine hands-on professional training for executives and managers. Each workshop is tailored to your organization-guaranteeing time-saving success and real-world expertise learning.
Public Workshop
IDC's public workshops are two-day professional training sessions that cover concepts as well as practical applications through exercises, group work and interactive feedback discussions. They are offered several times a year in different locations throughout the United States, Asia Pacific, and Europe.
Web Conferences
IDC's Web Conference series focuses on significant trends and paradigm shifts. Each Web conference will provide attendees with leading-edge market information that will enable them to make smart business decisions. For those unable to attend in person or those wishing to review the content presented, these synchronized multimedia presentations are available online.
IDC Links
IDC Link
IDC Link is a short, timely opinion piece with embedded links to publicly available Web sites and/or IDC research. This quick, consolidated resource links to specific CIS topic areas, providing context for important market trends and events.
Insights-only Research
Benchmark Analysis
Summarizes the benchmarking results for a specific process area within a domain. It describes how the metrics relate to overall corporate performance (by relating the data to industry indices) and how performance varies by industry segment.
Best Practices Review
Correlates the use of specific practices and superior performance as indicated by an analysis of the benchmarking database. It highlights any significant differences between industries. Conclusions provide a set of process priorities for improving a business case and advice on how to overcome change management issues.
Briefs
Short (2-3 page) documents created by Meridien Research on a topic of interest to its clients.
Bulletin
Informs IDC clients of market trends and opportunities in a less in-depth fashion than reports. Analysis typically covers one topic or market dimension. A bulletin can include in-depth analysis of a vendor announcement or industry trend, a vendor or product profile, survey data, preliminary market forecast and analysis data, or an update of market forecast and analysis data.
Business Case Framework
Provides a way to evaluate the return on a potential investment in the transformation of a specific process area. Using data from the benchmarking database, it shows the expected returns based on an aggressive, modest, and conservative set of assumptions, providing clients with a live tool that they can populate with their own data in order to frame the discussion within their company.
Case Study
An informative synopsis that details an organization's experience throughout a major project, product development, or initiative. It allows the reader to benefit from another company's successes and challenges.
Early Outlook Report
Used by Meridien Research, this 7-12 page report provides a forward-looking analysis on technologies that are not well enough established within the industry to perform a full Meridien Solutions analysis. It sets out critical success factors and enable readers to understand the make or break kinds of events to watch for in predicting the success of the technologies. It contains Background, Success Factors, Adoption Patterns, What to Watch sections.
Executive Brief
A brief and engaging repurposing of Insights research that speaks directly to our customer’s target audience. Commissioned by the GMS, it is a market-level discussion providing Insights thought leadership and quantitative snapshots to educate the reader. Our customers select the topic from a wide range of available Insights research and define the target audience.
FI Insight
Used by Financial Insights to provide short (normally under 5 pages) coverage and analysis of an industry event, new product or service, or company announcement for an IT Opportunity service.
FI Studies
A "wrapper" created to capture metadata from early Financial Insights reports. The content was poured into the document so it could be searched. The actual document was attached as a pdf.
Industry Short List
Uses a fact-based tool to help IT and business executives arrive at a short list of IT suppliers who best address the industry-specific needs of the business. It describes the market for which the vendors are being evaluated, describes the criteria being applied to the vendor evaluations, and provides an evaluation of each vendor using the Short List tool.
Looking Ahead
Analyzes an emerging technological solution, providing a forward-looking perspective for technologies where there is little, if any, track record. It discusses the early outlook for a solution or forecasts future developments, trends, and the likely consequences facing those in the energy field and solution providers (it does not forecast spending). Wherever possible, you should define the issues that will affect successful technology adoption or implementation 5-10 years forward.
Market Overview
Gives a high-level, “big picture” description of a market or solution area (business model, industry or market structure, emerging technology or technology standard, etc.) as it is currently. It places a solution or product into a context, describing the problem that it has been developed to address. It may also give a brief history or describe the product’s segments, current industry dynamics, and overall or emerging trends.
Market Players
Discusses, compares, and contrasts a variety of sources for a particular technological solution, including not only vendor offerings but also, when appropriate, solutions developed internally by an energy institution’s staff or near-proprietary developments created by third-party solution providers. It explores the competitive forces at work in a market segment and provides an in-depth comparison of the participating vendors or providers and their products and/or services.
Marketplace
Gives an in-depth assessment of the market spend on a technological solution and its implementation. It provides current market share information, forecasts future spending, and discusses recent trends within the relevant energy industry segments, both by geography (or tier) and by institution type (or segment).
Methods and Practices
Provides a step-by-step description of a method or methods that can be applied. As appropriate, the report may compare the benefits and drawbacks of the several methods.
News Flash
Provides short coverage and analysis of an industry event, new product or service, or company announcement.
Perspective
An article written by an Insights analyst on a topic of special interest to a target audience. This has generally already appeared in an industry publication and is repackaged for display on the Insights Web site.
Quarterly Update
A short document that covers a market each quarter. It typically has minimal analysis.
Reports
Presents detailed, comprehensive analysis of a particular market, company, technology, or other IT industry issues. Forecast and analysis reports typically provide five-year forecasts and analysis of market trends, opportunities, and leading companies. Survey reports present and analyze survey data, most often of demand side/end-user organizations, and produce findings and conclusions based on that primary research. Other reports are more qualitative in nature, providing comparative case studies, vendor strategies, or product feature analysis.
Solution Architecture
Provides the framework we use for analyzing and discussing a technological solution. It gives the reader an understanding of the components and elements required to deliver a solution successfully, how they fit together, and the core technologies required. It contains a brief description of the solution and graphical representations on how a particular technology functions.
Solutions Reports
Used by Meridien Research, they provide an in-depth analysis of a specific solution area. They contain five sections: Overview, Solution Elements, Solution Providers, Marketplace, Case Studies, and Looking Ahead. These reports will range between 25 and 45 pages, depending on the complexity of the solution and the number of case studies required to illustrate the solution.
Strategy
Explores the ways in which organizations are tackling the demands of a rapidly evolving, technology-driven, global economy. It provides an overview of strategy(ies) currently used in the industry to implement or exploit strategic technologies and how it/they differentiate the adopter. Where appropriate, it looks at the gaps between winning efforts and those that fall short of expectations.
Weekly Graphics
Meridien Research and early Financial Insights home page had a graphic that changed weekly.
Newsletters
ETrends
Provides insight, analysis, and forecasts on major trends and events. Most are published biweekly under specific subscription services, while others are free to registered users.
FI Newsletters
Provides insight, analysis, and forecasts on major trends and events. Most are published biweekly under specific subscription services, while others are free to registered users.
IT Forecaster
Provides insight, analysis, and forecasts on major trends and events. Most are published biweekly under specific subscription services, while others are free to registered users.
XSP Advisor
Provides insight, analysis, and forecasts on major trends and events. Most are published biweekly under specific subscription services, while others are free to registered users.
Pivot Table
Pivot Table
An interactive spreadsheet tool for analyzing trends and activities in a specific market segment. These tables are available only through an annual subscription service.
Presentations
IDC Presentation
IDC Presentations, delivered in PowerPoint format, will provide the latest, select CIS forecast data, primary research survey findings, and critical IDC analyst opinion in a succinct, easy-to-digest format.
IDC Presentation: Forecast
Highlights the latest CIS forecast data in a summary fashion and complements, but does not replace, the Market Analysis forecast study research requirement. It provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (e.g., conference events, internal client meetings, and client presentations) and are not part of a consulting/custom engagement.
IDC Presentation: Survey
Provides a first look at primary research results. It increases the amount of primary research data, including vendor- and customer-focused research results, published into a CIS.
Insights Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
Press Releases
Announces significant corporate news, such as key hirings or promotions, performance milestones, event highlights, or speaking engagements.
Product Information
Fact Sheet
Describes a research product; usually it details the major areas of coverage and deliverables and outlines key questions and competitive market conditions that the research will address. Includes links to all published research for a research product.
Studies
Buyer Case Study
Understanding the needs, perceptions, and attitudes of technology buyers and users is critical to your success. IDC is increasing the quantity of buyer-focused research to include an in-depth examination of customer needs and strategies, recommendations for buyers, and buyer case studies.
Competitive Analysis
A detailed accounting and review of a vendor's programs, processes, products, service, satisfaction, and/or strategy in a target market. This knowledge helps clients reduce their risk of losing market share or enhance their position over the competition.
Customer Needs and Strategies
Research focusing on the important decisions that business and IT professionals make every day.
Industry Developments and Models
A detailed assessment of a specific target market's expansion pattern. This analysis helps clients develop and deploy the right mix of value-add products, programs, or services to support their sales and/or partnering efforts.
Market Analysis
An in-depth examination of the dynamics and future of a single market or a group of related markets; the Market Analysis is where we will typically present our forecasts and assumptions, using a new Key Forecast Assumptions table.
Report
Reports are early versions of IDC Study documents. Older documents that are available through Insights subscriptions may exist in this format.
Special Study
A one-time report produced by a research group that is not published as a deliverable under a subscription service.
Survey
A report and interpretation of the results of a demand- or supply-side survey.
Technology Assessment
An analysis of the intricacies of an emerging or established technology, or the technologies contained within a specific product.
Vendor Needs and Strategies
An in-depth analysis of a company, a small group of companies, a division of a company focused on a particular market, or a best practice that the company exemplifies.
Prediction
Top 10 Predictions
Bold, well-conceived market predictions grounded in solid methodologies, primary research, and analyst experience. Lays out a clear roadmap to understanding major market opportunities and trends.
Insights Prediction
A thought-leadership study that describes what the Insights company believes could or will take place in the next 12-18 months in a particular market or group of markets ("ubermarket"). The document provides a clear road map to major trends in the year ahead. It can put these in the context of longer-term megatrends that impact the market and technology industry overall. The annual predictions can be used as research themes that can be revisited throughout the year to give context to market events.
FI Top 10
Used by the early Financial Insights, it describes what Financial Insights believes could or will take place in the next 12-18 months in a particular market or group of markets. Bold, well-conceived market predictions grounded in solid methodologies, primary research, and analyst experience. Lays out a clear roadmap to understanding major market opportunities and trends.