This week I was on a call with a prospective client that was considering licensing a forthcoming DCIG TOP 5 report. In this report, its solution achieved a TOP 5 award. However, the client remained uncertain about licensing the report.
It viewed its solution significantly better (i.e., more feature-rich) than some of the other TOP 5 solutions in this report. To the client’s credit, I agreed with its observation. Further, DCIG’s internal scoring (that DCIG does not publish) supported the prospective client’s assessment.
Publishing Detailed Product Rankings Became Problematic
The DCIG TOP 5 reports serve organizations that have begun exploring new solutions for their IT environment. Each TOP 5 report provides background on the use case for a specific technology and features that organizations should consider. DCIG TOP 5 reports specifically seek to provide a short list of vendors and products for organizations to consider.
In this conversation, the prospective client asked if DCIG would consider publishing the same or an alternative report disclosing the solutions in specific ranked order. DCIG declined this request since it defeats DCIG’s goal in producing its TOP 5 reports.
DCIG took this approach of limiting its disclosure of detailed product rankings or scores years ago when it still published the DCIG Buyer’s Guides reports. In these guides, DCIG initially published its detailed ranking of products from 1 to 100 (or whatever the number of products the report evaluated.)
DCIG’s disclosure of detailed rankings of all products was tremendously well-received and generated lots of interest. However, it also became problematic for DCIG over time. As such, DCIG decided to take a different approach in its creation of the TOP 5 reports.
The Rationale Behind Limited Disclosure of Detailed Product Rankings
The rationale behind why the DCIG TOP 5 reports display limited disclosure of detailed product ranking information is as follows:
1.Each TOP 5 solution may fit different organizational use cases.
The higher that DCIG internally scores a product, the greater its chance of achieving a TOP 5 award. Further, the higher the product’s score, the more flexibility it has and more use cases it can potentially satisfy.
However, simply achieving the highest score does not automatically make that product the best fit for every organization. DCIG looks at multiple product features that contribute to DCIG’s final internal score and ranking.
Any organization that considers only a top ranked product and assumes that product meets all its needs would be unwise. Also, an organization may not need all the features the product offers.
DCIG also often finds that the highest scoring products are often the most expensive, perhaps justifiably so. However, another TOP 5 solution may possess the functionality that an organization needs and may cost less.
2.More options to license the report help keep licensing costs lower.
Disclosing detailed product scores and rankings from 1 to 100 (or whatever number) sounds great in theory. Customers evaluating these products have a better understanding of each product’s capabilities. Further, sales guys love to point to a disclosed DCIG #1 ranking and say their product is the “best of the best of the best.”
In practice, licensing such reports with disclosed detailed product rankings becomes challenging. Few if any providers want to license a report when its product gets ranked anything other than #1. This then creates a sales challenge for DCIG. Using this ranking model, DCIG only realistically has one prospective client to which to license this report.
Further, in some circumstances, the provider potentially cannot afford the report. The timing of the release of the report may not fit well in its budget cycle. The report’s focus may also not align well with the provider’s marketing or sales priorities. Or, if the provider does want the report, it recognizes it is in a good negotiating position and asks for concessions.
Creating TOP 5 reports addresses these licensing challenges for both DCIG and the providers that license them. DCIG may now offer reports with the same content to multiple clients. Further, DCIG can spread the cost of the report across multiple providers rather than just potentially one footing the entire cost of the report.
While DCIG always wants every TOP 5 winner to license the report, for various reasons some usually decline. This no longer presents a business challenge for DCIG that the disclosed detailed product ranking model presented. DCIG now assumes some will decline. However, DCIG can still justify bringing these reports to market based on those that license it.
3. Minimizes any disparagement of providers or their products.
DCIG adheres to a core tenet when producing its competitive research: avoid disparaging providers or their products. While adhering to such a tenet might seem simple in practice, it becomes more difficult to achieve when performing competitive research.
Producing the TOP 5 while disclosing only limited detailed product rankings permits DCIG to adhere to this principle. DCIG appropriately awards each TOP 5 solution without calling out one as better than the others. Then, in each product’s write-up, the report lists each product’s specific differentiators. This write-up then helps organizations identify which of the TOP 5 solutions they should consider for their environment.
Even the solutions that do not earn a DCIG TOP 5 award DCIG attempts to handle carefully. The report simply lists the other solutions as “evaluated” with minimal to no commentary on their specific features or capabilities.
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Technology providers interested in licensing DCIG TOP 5 reports or having DCIG produce custom reports on their behalf, please contact DCIG for more information.