Unpacking Gartner's and Forrester's DEX Research

Forrester EUEM Wave™ report

What is it?

The Forrester Wave™: End-User Experience Management Solutions, Q3 2024 report is Forrester’s third-ever study of the EUEM space and more specifically, DEX. The Wave is a starting point for clients to compare and contrast the top eight vendors in the market today.

In their words, Forrester defines EUEM as “the system of record that enterprises increasingly rely upon to monitor and benchmark DEX at their organizations. Customers today use EUEM solutions to:

• Understand daily technology experience from the perspective of the end user.

• Track experience with digital experience scores.

• Collect qualitative feedback on technology experience.

• Reduce time spent on root-cause analysis.

• Improve remediation through self-healing.

What’s the evaluation criteria?

Forrester has plotted 8 vendors in the study along two axes, one by current offering (weaker/stronger), the other by strategy (weaker/stronger). In addition, Forrester analysts have plotted the size of each vendor’s marker on the chart to reflect that organization’s market presence. The vendors were also ranked and categorized as Challengers, Contenders, Strong Performers, or Leaders based on 34 variables ranging from practical topics like 3rd-party integrations, to more strategic topics, like innovation and vision.

Each variable was scored on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong) and weighted differently according to Forrester’s own methodology. The nice thing about the report is that readers can adapt those weightings to fit their individual needs.

How did Nexthink do?

Nexthink was named a leader and received the highest possible scores in the vision, innovation, and roadmap criteria. Forrester found that Nexthink "delivers a deep, holistic, and consumable approach to DEX" and that “the company’s true differentiator is the breadth and depth of its adoption services”.

In particular, Nexthink was able to standout because it aligns with Forrester’s recommendations for a strong EUEM solution:

• Enable holistic and deep visibility over the entire digital employee experience.
  • Data remains a key differentiator for vendors today, especially as they increasingly seek to use AI to sift through large quantities of it.
• Translate data into actionable insights.
  • Time-to-value is so important in the EUEM space — top vendors differentiate themselves with out-of-the-box templates, AI-based root-cause analysis, and superb customer enablement programs.
• Drive remediation at scale across thousands of endpoints.
  • In addition to more traditional self-healing mechanisms such as state management, low-code orchestration took center stage this year as a key capability, enabling customers to deliver sustained business value through automation.

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for DEX Tools report

What is it?

The Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for DEX Tools is the first ever report by Gartner dedicated exclusively to analyzing the Digital Employee Experience market across 16 vendors (including Nexthink). Gartner had a large team of VP-level analysts involved in the project—they drilled down into fifteen different evaluation criteria, and also looked at peer reviews, client inquiries and social media analytics to make the most informed decision yet about the DEX market.

Gartner defines DEX management tools as software that can:

• measure and continuously improve the performance of and employee sentiment toward company-provided technology;
• provide near real-time processing of aggregated data from endpoints, applications, employee sentiment, and organizational context into actionable insights;
• drive self-healing automations, self-help optimized support, and employee engagement.

Similar to Forrester, Gartner recommends customers use the Magic Quadrant as a first step to understanding the technology providers they might consider for a specific investment opportunity.

What’s the evaluation criteria?

The Gartner Magic Quadrant research methodology consists of a graphical, competitive positioning of four types of tech providers in fast-growing markets: Leaders, Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers. The four types are plotted along two axes: Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision.

• Leaders execute well against their current vision and are well positioned for tomorrow.
• Visionaries understand where the market is going or have a vision for changing market rules, but do not yet execute well.
• Niche Players focus successfully on a small segment, or are unfocused and do not out-innovate or outperform others.
• Challengers execute well today or may dominate a large segment, but do not demonstrate an understanding of market direction.

Gartner notes that the Magic Quadrant™ should be viewed more as a tool than the final word – “Keep in mind that focusing on the leaders’ quadrant isn’t always the best course of action. There are good reasons to consider market challengers. And a niche player may support your needs better than a market leader. It all depends on how the provider aligns with your business goals.”

How did Nexthink do?

Nexthink was named as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant™—positioned in the top right corner of the chart—and ranked highest in ability to execute and furthest in completeness of vision. Gartner referenced Nexthink’s product, marketing execution, and marketing understanding as key strengths.

Gartner Critical Capabilities

What is it?

As companion research to the Magic Quadrant™, Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report for DEX Management Tools focuses more on the product itself and how each tool aligns with and supports the most critical capabilities and Use Cases in IT. Gartner suggests the Critical Capabilities report can help inform the evaluation process for end-user services and digital workplace leaders looking to understand the functional capabilities of DEX tools offered by vendors.

What’s the evaluation criteria?

The report ranks vendors’ product scores by 15 critical capabilities applied to five use cases: IT Operations, IT Support, Experience Analysis, Employee Enablement; and Adoption and Employee Personas. The 15 capabilities include Analytics and Reporting, Workflow Orchestration, ITSM integrations, and other important variables.

The products in the study are rated on a scale from 1.0 to 5.0; and each capability is then weighted in terms of its relative importance for specific product/service use cases.

How did Nexthink do?

Nexthink ranked the highest in all five use cases, higher than 15 vendors’ products, and recorded top scores in 11 of 15 capabilities like DEX Scoring, Anomaly Detection and Remediation, and Employee Engagement.

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Interested in reading the reports from Forrester and Gartner?

Access Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report here.

Access The Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for DEX Tools report here.

Access The Forrester Wave™: End-User Experience Management Solutions, Q3 2024 report here.