IDC Research Types
Analyst
Analyst Profile
Provides complete background information on an IDC analyst. Each profile provides a biography, a notable quotation, a frequently asked question relevant to the particular analyst's focus, and a list of research authored by that analyst.
Team Profile
Lists the analyst members of a topical team. Outlines general areas of coverage and any specialties.
Briefs
Vendor Profile
Provides a concise, hard-hitting profile of an emerging vendor. A profile will highlight new players and technologies and the potential paradigm shifts or disruptions a vendor represents.
IDC Perspective
The IDC Perspective is a flexible doc that seeks to help business and tech buyers assess their business and IT strategy and/or associated business processes, especially as it relates to the use of technology. The document can be used in areas such as:
- Strategy and planning
- Trends and observations
- IT spending and investment
- Vendor conferences and announcements
IDC TechBrief
The IDC TechBrief helps the technology or business executive get smart about a single technology in the context of the business by answering 6 business critical questions about the technology:
- What is the technology?
- When should I adopt it?
- What can it do for my business?
- What are the critical success factors?
- What are the risks?
- Who are the suppliers?
Market Note
The Market Note is a flexible doc that provides IDC analysis and point of view on an industry event, new product or service, or a company announcement or development or fast breaking news.
Market Perspective
The Market Perspective is a flexible doc that analyzes key changes and developments happening in the market. This flexible research type can be used to analyze areas such as:
- Competitive Environment
- Innovation & Market Opportunity
- New Business Models
- Partner & Channel Strategy
- Enterprise Strategies (targeted to supplier)
- Regulation
- Socioeconomics
Event Proceedings
Event Proceeding
Provides published slides, audio, and other materials from IDC and Insights Web conferences, briefings, forums, or other events.
Events
Conference
Delivers dependable, relevant, and high-impact data and insight to help organizations make sound business and technology decisions. eBusiness executives, IT professionals, IT suppliers, and services suppliers benefit from the strategic insight and networking opportunities IDC conferences offer. Generally, all presentation slides are available online, and for most conferences, streaming audio of key discussions is available as well.
Web Conference
Focuses on significant trends and paradigm shifts. Each Web conference will provide attendees with leading-edge market information that will enable them to make smart business decisions. For those unable to attend in person or those wishing to review the content presented, these synchronized multimedia presentations are available online.
IDC DecisionScapes
IDC FutureScape
Serves as a framework for IT/tech professionals' IT strategy and planning for the next one to three years. It lists IDC's top 10 worldwide technology trends for the coming one to three years in a given research area and includes related drivers, projected IT/business strategy impact, and guidance.
IDC MarketScape
Helps IT/tech professionals develop a short list of suitable suppliers when selecting a vendor. Provides an unbiased assessment of tech suppliers in terms of offerings, strategy, capabilities, and other important factors in a given technology area.
IDC MaturityScape
Describes five stages of "maturity" or capability for a particular technology area, helps IT/tech professionals understand where their organizations fit within those stages, and provides guidance on key components for planning successful improvements to a tech initiative.
IDC MaturityScape Benchmark
Helps IT/tech professionals to benchmark their maturity against peers, develop a business case for a tech initiative, and build consensus about where critical IT investments should be made. Presents quantitative research results that show the market distribution for a given tech initiative across the five stages of maturity presented in the related IDC MaturityScape. Shows the results and components of particularly successful initiatives.
IDC PeerScape
Gives IT/tech professionals insight into best practices (and practices to avoid) by providing specific use case examples implemented by peers. Identifies practices that have the most impact on the success of a tech or business initiative, and provides actionable guidance for each practice.
IDC PlanScape
Helps IT/tech professionals to justify and plan a business and/or technology investment or opportunity by exploring why, what, who, and how (these are also the main section headings). Presents key players, critical success factors, risks, and actions to consider for a designated technology and/or business management area.
IDC TechScape
Helps IT/tech professionals with developing IT strategic plans and evaluating emerging technologies in terms of their risk to the business. Shows the adoption curve and risk levels over time for a specific emerging technology. Sorts technologies into three "adoption model" categories (transformational, incremental, opportunistic) to help tech leaders determine the potential impact for their organization.
IDC Links
IDC Link
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece. IDC Links provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
IDC Blink
IDC Blink
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece with a 2-minute audio clip. IDC Blinks provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
Pivot Tables
Pivot Table
Presents an interactive spreadsheet tool for analyzing trends and activities in a specific market segment. These tables are available only through an annual subscription service.
Presentations
IDC Survey
Presents a hypothesis about what is happening in the market backed by the results of a demand-side or supply-side survey. The focus is on interpreting and analyzing the survey results and providing a strong point of view along with actionable advice.
IDC Survey Spotlight
Answers a timely question and provides a strong opinion backed by IDC survey data. This is a quick nugget of information that is presented in two concise PowerPoint slides.
Market Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
Market Analysis Perspective
Delivers a concise current state view of a market and insight into the impact of future trends. Business executives, product managers, and MI/AR professionals can use this information when looking to understand buyers' perspectives and market impacts.
Tech Buyer Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
IDC Market Glance
Provides a look at the landscape of a tech market, including competitive positioning, adjacent segments, and potential partner opportunities.
Press Releases
Press Release
Announces significant corporate news, such as key hirings or promotions, performance milestones, event highlights, or speaking engagements.
Product Information
Fact Sheet
Describes a research product. Usually details the major areas of coverage and deliverables, and outlines key questions and competitive market conditions that the research will address. Includes links to all published research for a research product.
Studies
Industry Developments and Models
Provides a detailed assessment of a specific target market's expansion pattern. This analysis helps clients develop and deploy the right mix of value-add products, programs, or services to support their sales and/or partnering efforts.
Market Forecast
Provides the future of a single market or a group of related markets. It presents a new or updated market forecast, including key drivers and assumptions used in the forecast.
Market Share
Provides data on market size, regional allocations, and platform splits as well as a summary of vendor shares for the most recently completed period (year, quarter).
Special Study
Provides a one-time study produced by a research group that is not published as a deliverable under a subscription service.
Taxonomy
Highlights and emphasizes how IDC tracks the market while also making it easier for customers to find and identify IDC Taxonomy documents.
Technology Assessment
Provides an analysis of the intricacies of an emerging or established technology or the technologies contained within a specific product.
IDC Innovators
IDC Innovators is aimed at informing IT buyers about emerging vendors with an innovative new technology or ground-breaking business model. Vendors identified in the document as innovators are linked together within a specific market area and around solving or alleviating a common business problem. Vendors included have annual revenue under $100 million at the time of selection.
Technology Segment
The IDC Technology Segment offers CEMA clients a comprehensive view of a technology segment in one country or subregion and provides a market view and forecast and/or market share and vendor profiles, including performances and strategies. It is specifically intended to serve smaller country markets and subregions.
This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation presents 18 national civilian government generative AI (GenAI) use cases and highlights the data modality, business impact, metrics that agencies should use to determine return on investment, and examples ...
This IDC Market Glance provides an overview of the cybersecurity vendor landscape servicing the global government market and outlines several leading market trends and challenges that are top of mind for industry leaders.
"The cybersecurity ...
This IDC PeerScape underscores the critical role of automation in addressing the cybersecurity staffing shortage and enhancing cyberdefenses. By automating operations across incident response, identity management, and user monitoring, organizations ...
This IDC Market Note discusses Comcast Business' annual business analyst conference held at headquarters Philadelphia in April 2024. The conference focused on Comcast, and Comcast Business, strengths and future goals in unified communications ...
This IDC Market Note discusses the annual federal geographic information systems (GIS) conference hosted by Esri in February 2024. The conference highlighted the use of GIS in various sectors such as national security, sustainability, climate ...
This IDC Market Presentation highlights several trends that are shaping the future of security and resilience in government. The drivers impacting security and resilience trends include the escalating sophistication of cyberthreats, requiring ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the adoption and potential risks of generative AI (GenAI) in cybersecurity, particularly in government sectors. It highlights the United States' efforts to regulate AI, the potential misuse of GenAI, and the ...
This IDC study highlights the evolving cybersecurity landscape due to emerging technologies and the rapid adoption of IoT devices and hybrid and multicloud environments and the proliferation of APIs and cloud services. This document emphasizes ...
This IDC Market Glance offers a high-level view of the emerging generative AI (GenAI) applications landscape. It highlights key vendors of productivity applications, business applications, and industry-specific applications. IDC defines ...
This IDC PeerScape discusses practices to manage agency regulation using free federal cybersecurity resources. Many agency leaders find it difficult to adequately fund new programs without additional financial resources. This is especially ...
This IDC Market Note discussed Google Public Sector's latest announcement and offerings as provided in an analyst forum, with a focus on cloud, security, and AI.
"Google Public Sector's public sector strategy is promising with Google ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the developments in operational AI use cases in federal, state, and local governments. IDC foresees AI as an increasingly critical factor impacting security operations across forms of government.
"GenAI ...
On October 30, 2023, the Biden administration issued an executive order (EO) governing the use of AI. Specifically, the EO addresses eight overarching goals: establishing standards for AI safety and security; privacy protections; ...
This IDC study provides IDC's 2024 top 10 predictions for national government.
"The drivers included in this IDC FutureScape will compel agencies to take a strategic approach to national security, sovereignty, and resilience and protection ...
This IDC study provides our top 10 predictions for Smart Cities and Communities.
"We have seen a rise in a strategic approach by municipalities to think of Smart City investments with an eye toward the future — future needs of the ...
This IDC Market Presentation highlights key findings from federal, state, and local government decision makers' responses to IDC's 2023 Worldwide Industry CloudPath and Future of Enterprise Wave Surveys. This Market Presentation takes ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the developments IDC foresees as being critical factors in the U.S. federal cybersecurity market throughout 2023 and into 2024.
"Supply chain vulnerabilities and human error are two major challenges ...
This IDC Market Presentation provides technology vendors with an overview of the key strategic and technology trends shaping the government sector digital landscape across the Americas in 2023 and beyond. The document offers a foundation ...
This IDC study discusses digital transformation (DX) in national governments and its influence on prioritizing use cases for investment as well as the mission and strategic priorities that are driving technology spending.
"As national ...
This IDC PlanScape provides federal agencies a framework to make strategic choices regarding the type of AI solutions they should leverage to address the skills gap in federal agencies. This IDC PlanScape highlights several solutions developed ...
This IDC Vendor Profile highlights Google Public Sector's products and services including Mandiant's cybersecurity services. It provides a brief overview of Google Public Sector's products and services available to U.S. federal agencies ...
This IDC TechBrief examines network edge security as a service (NESaaS) for U.S. federal agencies. As agencies adopt zero trust technologies, they should consider NESaaS solutions to consolidate and unify security solutions when aiming to ...
This IDC Perspective addresses how continued and evolving threats have put national supply chains at risk to cyberattacks. This has prompted mandates to modernize supply chain components and improve supply chain risk management. Agencies ...
CISA, in partnership with the FBI, NSA, and numerous internationally cybersecurity authorities, published a guide for secure agile development with the aim of improving global security standards. The document outlines key software security ...
This IDC PlanScape discusses edge security for federal agencies.
"Many agencies' primary goal for improving security is implementing a zero trust architecture (ZTA). Zero trust network architecture (ZTNA) does reduce risk, but agencies ...