Collaborative work management (CWM) has been a growing business category the past decade, with an increasing number of global companies realizing the importance of the technology to their daily operation. The pandemic exacerbated this trend with more distributed teams overnight and throughout 2020.
Evaluating and then investing in the right solution can be challenging, because not all CWM technologies are created equal. So, organizations interested in improving their collaboration and work processes and adopting a CWM solution should review industry reports during the evaluation process. One of the most reputable and respected industry reviewers that conducts comprehensive, unbiased reviews is the Forrester Wave.
The Forrester Wave Q4 Report
The Forrester Wave provides thorough, data-driven evaluations for the software, hardware, and services markets, and serves as a guide for buyers considering their purchasing options in technology. Forrester Wave announced their top CWM providers in their latest report based on 32 criteria, with which they categorize providers under four labels: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Challengers.
In the latest edition, the Forrester Wave Q4 Report named Wrike a leader for the third consecutive time. This marks the third time in a row that Wrike has received the highest possible scores in 15 criteria including, among others: Content Collaboration, Internal/External Collaboration, Review and Approval, UI/User Experience, Training and Support, Integration, Partner Ecosystem, Mobile, Security, and Product Vision.
Wrike’s inclusion in the Forrester Wave comes shortly after being named to Deloitte’s Fast 500 list for the sixth consecutive year.
How Forrester defines collaborative work management
Forrester defines CWM technology as “software tools that support the confluence of project and process work by allowing users to create personal and team workspaces; invite other users, internal and external to the organization, to collaborate on digital artifacts; identify workload requirements and capacity; and allocate activities to other users to deliver on work items and then track progress.”
Of all the technology solutions in the market that claim to offer collaboration and efficient work management, how does Forrester decide which vendors to include and rank?
Forrester recommends that brands looking for a CWM solution look for vendors that provide:
- Strong content collaboration within the solution. With this functionality, teams can collaborate more effectively on shared content, underscored by a built-in approval workflow to enhance repeatable processes.
- Enterprise-level work management and end-user workflow design capabilities. CWM solutions have continued to expand capabilities to scale project and process management while retaining individualized work experiences. Introducing end-user workflow design supports the need for a wide variety of process automations in an enterprise environment.
- Analytics and machine learning to support predictive work planning. Early CWM implementations relied on simple filtering techniques to provide reporting, but enterprise organizations require more sophisticated analysis to make workload planning decisions. Vendors must provide resident abilities to develop graphic reporting and interactive dashboards, and leverage machine learning to provide recommendations for allocations and scheduling during capacity planning.
With this combination of features and functionality, enterprise brands can feel confident in their work management platform.
The evaluation criteria
In their review, Forrester conducts primary research to develop a list of vendors and from that initial list, narrow it based on the inclusion criteria. The team then gathers product details and strategy through a detailed questionnaire, demos/briefings, and customer reference surveys/interviews. From those inputs, along with the analyst’s experience and expertise in the marketplace, they score vendors, using a relative rating system that compares each vendor against one another:
Evaluation overview
The scoring system comprises three components:
- Current offering. Each vendor’s position on the vertical axis of the Forrester Wave graphic indicates the strength of its current offering. Key criteria for these solutions include content collaboration, internal and external collaboration, review and approval, enterprise capabilities, and automation.
- Strategy. Placement on the horizontal axis indicates the strength of the vendors’ strategies. Forrester evaluated product vision, innovation roadmap, planned enhancements, execution roadmap, and partner ecosystem.
- Market presence. Represented by the size of the markers on the graphic, the market presence scores reflect each vendor’s revenue, number of customers, average deal size, and number of enterprise installations.
Vendor inclusion criteria
To qualify for the Forrester Wave report, participants had to meet three specific requirements in subscription revenue ($120M+) along with global and enterprise presence. Specifically, vendors must already have data centers in three separate regions and sales and support in five or more countries, because enterprise clients require dedicated customer success and customer support. Furthermore, at least 15% of each vendor’s corporate customers must have implementations with at least 2,000 seats.
Why Wrike’s a leader
According to the Forrester report, “Wrike’s work management capabilities outpace its competitors," adding, “Wrike continues to deliver a strong user experience for work management, leading its competitors in combining depth with ease of use. Plus, their content collaboration, predefined workflow, and templates allow users to get started quickly and automation of mundane processes enables teams to ratchet up productivity.”
Additionally, we’ve launched an assortment of new products and features that extend the power and functionality of our CWM platform, including Work Intelligence™, Wrike for Marketers Performance Insights, Solution for PMO, and the New Wrike Experience. For the enterprise, we’ve deepened our security and scalability investments with Wrike Lock and the upcoming Locked Spaces in 2021.
Following the release of the report, Wrike’s Founder and CEO, Andrew Filev, stated:
“We believe this is tremendous validation of our efforts in building a platform that truly reflects the current and future demands of the market. ... Before COVID-19, we saw how CWM could fundamentally reshape how enterprises get work done. The pandemic has only shortened that timeline, bringing the ‘future of work’ into the present and creating new demands for remote teams to do the best work of their lives.”
Download the Forrester Wave report here
Check out the full report here, including the detailed scorecard from all 32 criteria, and start a free 14-day trial of Wrike today. There’s no better way to experience the power of Wrike until you’re working in it!
