Gartner Magic Quadrant is a brand name for the series of reports published by Gartner.Inc. But then the name has a work too. It is research methodology and visualization tool for monitoring and evaluating the progress and positions of companies in a specific technology-based market. The analyses are done every two or three years and are conducted for several specific technology markets.
Where does it finds its use?
Magic Quadrant Reports can be useful for investors looking to find the companies that fit their business requirements and needs. Instead of simply showing ranks between companies and rating them, it shows a two dimensional matrix to illustrate the strengths and weakness between companies.
How is it done?
Gartner rates vendors on two criteria –
- Completeness Of Vision
- Ability To Execute
Using these two criteria’s, a vendor is then put into one of the following categories –
- Leaders – The companies that enter in this category are the ones that fulfill both the criteria completely. They are often, large companies with mature markets and having a large customer base. These are the companies that are highly visible in their area of marketing. Leaders are the companies that have a huge impact on the market and even have the potential to change the flow or direction of market trends.
- Visionaries – These are the ones that lack in the ability to execute, although they have the potential to be innovative and have a sound knowledge of the market. It is obvious for a startup to come under the category of visionary, but in later times, it is usually the small businesses or the larger ones trying to get out of a rut, who fall under this category.
- Challengers – Challengers are the companies that have the ability to execute but lack in vision. These are the companies, who often are big enough, but since they lack the vision, they tend to follow only a certain plan. They can become the leaders but only if they improve on their vision.
- Niche Players – These are the ones who tend to score low on both, their vision as well as the ability to execute. These are the ones who can perform good in certain sector of the market, but can rarely outperform the bigger companies. These are the ones who are focused either only on one sector or are new business.
THE ISSUE
Although it may sound as a great way of figuring out which company is doing good in which area, the Magic Quadrant has come under lot of criticism. It has been pointed that the Magic Quadrant caters more towards largest vendors and buyers. The main issue is that Gartner does not discloses the amount it receives from the vendors that are rated high nor the methodology it uses to find out the results. It has also been surveyed that often the Magic Quadrant tries to skew the market by applying their methodology to understand the market and change the trends to fit into their scheme of analysis.
Even more, open source analysts are not considered by Gartner.
No matter what, although it might seem that the companies in the role of leaders are the best, it is better to analyze the report better since businesses in every category have their own unique strengths and weaknesses that should be taken into consideration.
Happy Learning 🙂
Tanubhrt.This.Side 
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