Gartner Magic Quadrant: CRM Analysis

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The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a graph report that provides a qualitative analysis of a market, its participants, and where they fall within the market. This research helps customers make the right decisions when researching services, competition, and what products differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Gartner applies the following criteria for rating its vendors: ability to execute and completeness of vision. Gartner then applies its proprietary technology to place the competitors within four quadrants of a graph:

• Leaders
  Vendors that fall into this quadrant have the highest score for Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. If a vendor falls within this quadrant, then Gartner concludes it has the credibility, market share, and sales and marketing qualities to drive acceptance of new technologies. Vendors positioned in the Leaders quadrant are thought leaders. They understand their market, they are innovators, they have a reliable business with consistent financial performance, and they have a presence established in five or more major geographical regions. Any vendor falling in the leader quadrant also has a strong platform support for its clients.
• Challengers
  If a vendor falls within the Challenger quadrant, Gartner finds that it is established in the market and stands as a threat to the vendors within the Leaders quadrant. Challengers have a strong and established product, a firm market position, and the resources to continue to grow. Vendors are financially viable, but they may lack the size or influence of vendors in the Leaders quadrant.
• Visionaries
  Vendors in the visionaries quadrant have a firm understanding of where the market is going, but have not yet established the ability to capture their piece of the market share. Oftentimes, Visionary vendors are privately held companies.
• Niche Players
  When a vendor is categorized as a niche player, Gartner finds that the vendor focuses on a small segment or vertical of a market, or the vendor is unfocused, lacking the ability to create unique features from their competitors. Niche Players may have trouble establishing their vision and bringing it to the competitive market.

This May 2017, Gartner released an updated Magic Quadrant for CRM. Sugar CRM moved from Visionary to Niche Players!