The KuppingerCole Leadership Compass is a document and working tool which provides an overview of a particular IT market segment and identifies the leaders in that market segment. It is the compass that assists you in identifying the vendors and products/services in a particular market segment which you should consider for product decisions. We focus on security, functionality, integration, interoperability, and usability, but also on the innovativeness of vendors, their market position, their ecosystem, and their financial strength.
Types of Leadership
We look at four types of leaders:
Product Leaders identify the leading-edge products in a particular market segment. These products deliver to a large extent what we expect from products in that market segment. They are mature.
Market Leaders are vendors which have a large, global customer base and a strong partner network to support their customers. A lack of global presence or breadth of partners can prevent a vendor from becoming a Market Leader.
Innovation Leaders are those vendors which are driving innovation in the market segment. They provide several of the most innovative and upcoming features we hope to see in the market segment.
TOverall Leaders are identified based on a combined rating, looking at the strength of products, the market presence, and the innovation of vendors. Overall Leaders might have slight weaknesses in some areas but become an Overall Leader by being above average in all areas.
For every area, we define three groups of vendors: Leaders, Challengers and Followers.
Inclusion and exclusion of vendors
KuppingerCole tries to include all vendors within a specific market segment in their Leadership Compass documents. The scope of the document is global coverage, including vendors which are only active in regional markets such as Germany, Russia, or the US.
The target is providing a comprehensive view of the products in a market segment. KuppingerCole will provide regular updates on their Leadership Compass documents.
We provide a quick overview of vendors not covered and their offerings in the chapter Vendors to watch. In that chapter, we also look at some other interesting offerings around the specific market and in related market segments.
Approximately 12-25 vendors are included in a Leadership Compass.
Participation is free, after publishing the report a reprint license can be acquired.