What To Do With The Gartner Magic Quadrant?
As you may have noticed, last week Gartner published its annual E-Recruitment Magic Quadrant. With every Magic Quadrant comes the press releases from vendors telling people how great Gartner thinks they are, other vendor quietly complaining about their precise positioning in the graph, and the myriads of “influencers” challenging Gartner’s vendor rankings due to their perceived conflict of interest since many of those vendors are also Gartner clients.
Let me be particularly clear to the HR industry — the Magic Quadrant is a great tool to assist in the decision-making process. The key word being, “assist”. Jim Holincheck and Thomas Otter conduct significant due diligence, vendor briefings and customer reference calls to make their conclusions in the quadrant. They are two of the brightest and most knowledgeable guys in the industry that ooze credibility.
E-Recruitment Magic Quadrant – 2006, 2009
Source: Taleo Blog
I haven’t gone through the 2009 report in detail yet but simply looking at the “money chart”, I come way with the following thoughts…
- E-recruitment, better known as talent acquisition or event applicant tracking systems (ATS), continues to be a dynamic market with vendors still coming and going. Just looking at the 2006 Magic Quadrant and it easily highlights this fact.
- Taleo has clearly established themselves as the market leader in the eyes of Gartner and they are continuing to extend their leadership position
- Peopleclick has been newly recognized as a “leader” for its deep recruitment capabilities
- Thomas Otter’s European presence has definitely influenced this years quadrant with vendors from Norway, UK, France, Australia and Switzerland
- ERP vendors are evolving albeit slowly in recruitment
- Some smaller vendors like iCIMS and SilkRoad are making great strides and improving their market position
- A few vendors are noticeably absent like Ultimate Software and SuccessFactors because presumably they don’t meet the methodology standards.
Ultimately the question becomes, though, “what do we do with this information?” Here are a few of my recommendations…
- For those that are not Gartner clients, you can likely get your hands on the Magic Quadrant report by visiting one of the “leaders” websites shortly. They often license the report for republishing to customers and prospects. Use it for educational purposes to better understand the vendors that serve the market and the capabilities that are being added by each respective vendor. Of course, you can also become a Gartner client or just buy the report off their website!
- For current Gartner clients, read the report but schedule an advisory call with Jim or Thomas to get the color commentary. I can guarantee you their advice is just as valuable if not more valuable than the written research.
- Do NOT use the Magic Quadrant to put together a “short-list”. I often get asked by CIOs to tell them why they should include a vendor in their selection process when they don’t show up on the “MQ”. This is often frustrating because the MQ fill specialized verticals (ie. government) or certain industry segments (ie. SMB) and can biased a decision. The Magic Quadrant should NOT be the sole determiner of a short-list but one of many “inputs”.
- Use the Magic Quadrant to shape the decision-making process and criteria. The Magic Quadrant should help create the dialogue of vendors that may be a good fit and help to create the criteria to assess the vendors. All too often decision-makers, and tools like the Magic Quadrant, can focus too heavily on functionality. While product functionality is always an important factor, other key factors, such as technology foundation, vendor stability, service and support, total cost of ownership, etc., should highly influence a decision.
- Seek third-party, non-biased expertise to assist with the vendor evaluation and selection. Third party consultants, like Knowledge Infusion (apologies for the shameless plug) can help objectively identify the key business outcomes and align those outcomes with requirements and scenarios to best showcase the respective software solutions.
16 Comments Add your own
1. Maksim Ovsyannikov | December 7th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Kudos to Jim and Thomas for great job with an updated MQ. Having said that, I am still waiting for someone to publish a magic quadrant on analysts. Wouldn’t we all like to see that one?
2. Bill Kutik | December 7th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
What a great post, Jason, particularly giving people the inside track of how to get their hands on a free copy of the MQ, not to mention your sage advice on how best to use it. Less tweeting and more blogging for you, sir.
3. Susan Vitale | December 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Thanks for the post, Jason.
I agree that the MQ is valuable, but many don’t know how to use it so they assume all of the evaluation research is now done for them. The MQ does not and should not be the ONLY tool used to create a short (or long!) list, and you’re right that there are many elements left off of the report. That said, it’s an important piece and we’re happy that you noted iCIMS is “making great strides and improving their market position.”
4. Brian Wilson | December 7th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Noone takes the MQ seriously anymore - smart vendors spend just enough “not to be in the wrong quadrant”, and that’s it. Jim and Thomas are respected analysts, so give then their due (well said Jason), but it’s pure marketing these days.
Everyone is desperate for some competition to Gartner in this market, but the “Big G” seems dead-set on buying up the competition, leaving vendors with little choice except to pony up the Quadrant dough.
Sad days indeed. Great post Mr C.
5. Jason Corsello | December 8th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Brian-
I think Gartner Research and the MQ is taken very seriously and used extensively by Fortune 100 CIOs and IT professionals. Particularly the one’s I’m engaged with. HR is less dependent on the MQ and use it more to help validate certain vendor opinions.
I would agree that we are seeing a growing gap in market research today.
Thanks for your comment.
6. systematicHR - Human Reso&hellip | December 10th, 2009 at 2:00 am
[…] know the market well enough on your own, then you do need a guide. Jason Corsello has a number of really good suggestions on how to use the Magic Quadrant. Hope you go read them. […]
7. Chris Clarke | December 10th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Its great that e-recruitment vendors outside of the North American market have been recognised. Our clients often appreciate the local providers for their service and local guidance they can provide.
8. Peter Gold | December 10th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Jason
I think the MQ is too much based on theory and not enough practice. I don’t know if the analysts have actually used any of the products or spoke to many customers but based on their results I’d suggest not.
I continually work with many ATS vendor products from an operational and technical aspect and find them lacking in many areas. The MQ as I can see is of little use in determining a supplier. That may sound somewhat arrogant but based on my own experience I’ll stand by what I say.
I think your post raises some good questions about the MQ but you quote the analysts as “two of the brightest and most knowledgeable guys in the industry that ooze credibility” yet then go onto to highlight obvious flaws in the MQ as a guide to selecting a vendor. I agree with your points you make which bring into question how valid the MQ really is.
I will read the full report and do a more detailed blog post and review my comments here accordingly.
Peter
9. Destination Talent » Tal&hellip | December 13th, 2009 at 8:22 am
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10. Martin Snyder | December 13th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I think “Magic Quadrant” is an unfortunate name for a few reasons- 1) Why magic? Who needs or believes in magic? 2) Why a quadrant? Does the information being imparted really require a quadrant?
Gimmicky if you ask me.
I agree that Jim is very sharp and knows the space. There is a long tail of vendors out there who don’t participate for various reasons, and the truth is that this market is a lot more complex than vendors, analysts, and customers often appreciate.
I’d give the research a more serious name and orient it toward looking at why people buy what they buy. Knowing which kinds of end-users tend to end up with which solution is probably more useful than understanding the individual attributes of the various available solutions stacked up in a quadrant.
11. Saju Samuel | December 14th, 2009 at 10:19 am
What a great post, we have always used MQ has a great marking tool
12. Magicality of a Gartner M&hellip | December 15th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
[…] you want some ideas about what to do with the information head over to the Human Capitalist for some recommendations. AKPC_IDS += “1582,”;Popularity: unranked [?]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: […]
13. Grandma | December 20th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I think the MQ is a great tool for specific functions but is limited from a functional viewpoint. To get to MQ the market needs to pass the MarketScope first. There are numerous other product segments that could be MQ’d. I like your recommendation to look at a vendor that isn’t included. Specifically for ATS vendors, does anything really matter to a recruiter beyond putting the best candidates in front of managers? For this reason alone, your advice is very sage because companies should look at the integrated HR picture.
14. Larry Perlstein | December 29th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I’m a bit late commenting on this post but I want to comment and correct a couple of misconceptions in the comments. First, the link Jason provided at the beginning of his post to an educational report on Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes is a great way to learn about the methodology and rigor used to develop this research. Second, vendors can neither influence their position in the MQ by how much they spend with Gartner on advisory services, events or consulting, nor can they opt-out of the research process. The analysts determine, using inclusion criteria listed in the report, which vendors are included. See the Ombudsman blog for more detail: http://tinyurl.com/cdzgvr
Larry Perlstein
Gartner Ombudsman
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