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SAN RAMON, CA, January 21, 2016 - Ventana Research, which provides market research, strategic advice, best practices and business insights on the uses of technology across business and IT functions, today unveiled its research and educational agenda for 2016. This agenda details the research-based reports and analyses the firm will deliver in each line of business and technology area in 2016 to help businesses utilize their technology resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. The research agenda offers a first look at the trends and best practices that are critical for business to consider this year to retain their competitive edge. It also clearly differentiates the research fact-based services Ventana Research provides from the less rigorous offerings of IT analyst or consulting firms that base their guidance on input from a limited number of clients and lack the methodical discipline to fully assess and project market trends.

Ventana Research’s agenda for 2016 is identifies the buyer-based market research – the Ventana Research Benchmarks – and the vendor- and product-focused Value Indexes, which will cover a broad range of topics in the lines of business, IT organizations and vertical industries. The research will examine key technology innovations that are changing the way business operates including: analytics and big data, business and social collaboration, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, mobile and wearable technology, and the use of social media. It will assess their impacts in finance, human resources, sales, marketing, customer service, operations, supply chain and IT functions in more than 20 vertical industries. Moreover, Ventana Research continues to expand its vendor- and technology-oriented Value Index assessments; this research utilizes the most comprehensive research-based methodology in the industry to evaluate products for suitability-to-task and the information and support vendors provide in an RFP-oriented format that can help organizations reduce cost, time and risk in assessing applications and technology. As the research agenda reveals, Ventana Research provides the most authoritative education available on best practices for to inform making technology choices in business, all of it based on its rigorous research methodology and experience gained from more than a dozen years in the industry. Ventana Research has benchmarked tens of thousands of organizations, differentiating it from any other analyst firm in the industry. Its research and education already is provided directly to a community of members worldwide.

"In 2016 the decision-making about what applications and technology are assessed and adopted has shifted largely from IT to business leaders, which completely changes what kind of advice is needed and where it should come from,” said Mark Smith, CEO and chief research officer of Ventana Research. “Companies that continue to gain advice and best-practices insights from IT analyst firms do themselves a disservice and limit the potential business value gained from technology investments. IT-focused analyst firms and their predictions built on IT-led perspectives continue to be biased and provide guidance that is very much at odds with what the lines of business need to perform and be successful. They need practical guidance that addresses their business needs for applications running on mobile technology, how order-to-cash processes needs to be architected with applications across line-of-business departments and where business planning is used, from the front office to Finance and HR. These are cutting-edge examples of where a research-based approach focused on business – the approach reflected in Ventana Research’s 2016 research agenda –can result in competitively smart assessments and significant savings of time and valuable resources.”

“Having a line-of-business focus for aligning processes, whether industry-specific or not, with applications and technology is essential to ensure accurate technology guidance,” Smith said. “That’s why we are excited to again provide our publicly available research agenda, an agenda that’s built on research and our ongoing review of how applications and technology actually work. We look at much more than vendor-provided information on products, customers and revenue. That’s what other IT analyst firms focus on, which is limiting compared to our direct evaluation of the technology for its usability, manageability, reliability and adaptability to business.”

Ventana Research’s 12 years of market research enables it to fill the void for high-quality, fact-based research to inform and educate business and technology buyers and suppliers. It is the only technology analyst firm that publicly posts its research agenda and framework for an entire year and provides free access to market research. Merely providing an analyst note or listing reports to be written does not constitute a useful research agenda; it merely announces the use of an approach that fails to use a methodology built on fact-based primary research and full product evaluations that discover the real needs and direction of business and IT. “Our market- and primary research-based approach more clearly than ever differentiates our firm from the array of others,” Smith added.

For more information about the research agenda, please visit http://www.ventanaresearch.com/researchagenda and download the research agendas for business and technology areas most important to your needs now and in the rest of the year. Look also for Ventana Research’s daily benchmark research facts via its social media channel on Twitter at @VentanaResearch and on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1625427

About Ventana Research

Ventana Research is the most authoritative and respected benchmark business technology research and advisory services firm. We provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies through a unique set of research-based offerings including benchmark research and technology evaluation assessments, education workshops and our research and advisory services, Ventana On-Demand. Our unparalleled understanding of the role of technology in optimizing business processes and performance and our best practices guidance are rooted in our rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions in every industry. This benchmark research plus our market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver education and expertise to our clients to increase the value they derive from technology investments while reducing time, cost and risk.

Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; business and IT professionals worldwide are members of our community and benefit from Ventana Research's insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe. Our views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. To learn how Ventana Research advances the maturity of organizations’ use of information and technology through benchmark research, education and advisory services, visit www.ventanaresearch.com.

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