Magic Quadrant for Marketing Resource Management

Marketing resource management (MRM) is a set of processes and capabilities designed to enhance a company's ability to orchestrate and optimize internal and external marketing resources (see "The Five Competencies of MRM 'Re-' Defined" [Note: This document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions.).

MRM applications enable companies to:

• Plan and budget for marketing activities and programs (strategic planning and financial management).
• Create and develop marketing programs and content (creative production management).
• Collect and manage content and knowledge (digital asset, content and knowledge management).
• Fulfill and distribute marketing assets, content and collateral (marketing fulfillment).
• Measure, analyze and optimize marketing performance (MRM analytics).

Vendors in the MRM Magic Quadrant are assessed on their ability to support each of these five MRM competency areas. Although digital asset management (DAM) is one capability for MRM, this Magic Quadrant does not evaluate DAM vendors that do not provide other MRM functionality. Most MRM vendors offer a light DAM capability to support marketing asset management for creative production management and marketing fulfillment, but the focus is not on DAM, but on support of MRM capabilities.

Source: Gartner (February 2013)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Adnovate

Adnovate, headquartered in the Netherlands, is a Niche Player for its predominantly European presence, as well as its primary focus on marketing asset management and fulfillment. Consider Adnovate if your company is European-based and looking for multichannel content management, local marketing communications enablement, point of sale (POS) material distribution and/or marketing collaboration workflow.

Strengths

• New clients: Adnovate added 16 net new MRM customers this past year, with additional cross-sells in the existing client base. It currently has over 100 clients, primarily in Europe. Adnovate is seeing increased interest from product-focused companies in Europe in industries such as consumer packaged goods and retail.
• Asset management and fulfillment: Although Adnovate provides a broad set of MRM capabilities, its core competency and focus remain on supporting brand management and the end-to-end marketing supply chain process, with an emphasis on managing marketing assets and content. Adnovate offers seven primary modules, including content, plan, design, build, publish, shop and monitor. Clients use different sets of modules to support four main types of solutions: multichannel content management, local marketing communications, POS material distribution and marketing collaboration workflow. Adnovate supports a variety of media and content formats, including print, direct marketing artwork, video, brochures and leaflets, press kits, newsletters, presentations, online advertising, catalogs, POS, and PDF.
• R&D investment: In 2012, Adnovate added budgeting capabilities for local campaigns facilitated by the POS Distributor module, developed automated task assignments for creative production projects, standardized building blocks from which to configure marketing workflows, enhanced product information management for marketing (PIMM) capabilities, added more POS campaign functionality, and enhanced its dashboards for marketing projects and tasks. The vendor used Alfresco to make major improvements to its marketing workflow and provide open-standard support via content management interoperability services (CMIS). A major focus of the workflow enhancements in the solution was to improve internal collaboration across the marketing team and with external agencies and suppliers. Plans for 2013 include continued improvements to marketing collaboration and workflow, integration between DAM and PIMM, and further improvements to support differentiated and targeted in-store campaigns across multiple countries.
• Deployment options and pricing: Adnovate supports both the on-demand software as a service (SaaS) multitenant model and on-premises solutions. The on-demand platform is based on Oracle and Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE). Most clients currently use the SaaS option. Adnovate updated its pricing in 2012 with a three-tier pricing system. This pricing has allowed the vendor to sell to small or midsize businesses (SMBs).
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated that they selected Adnovate because the solution met its MRM requirements, and for Adnovate's understanding of their business requirements.

Cautions

• Small vendor: Adnovate is a small vendor, with less than $12 million in overall revenue in 2012, and it is susceptible to strong fluctuations in the market. Its growth, compared with many of the other vendors in this Magic Quadrant, has been flatter, at around 6%. It admittedly lost revenue in its print business, which it is now trying to recoup with a multichannel/multimedia approach that is showing promise. Gartner estimates MRM revenue for 2012 was around $8 million to $10 million. Adnovate will need to drive increased revenue in 2013 or risk being removed from the MRM Magic Quadrant evaluation in 2014, due to a failure to meet inclusion criteria for revenue. It could be an attractive acquisition target for companies wanting to augment their MRM capabilities for marketing asset management and fulfillment, or to expand into Europe. Clients should carefully weigh the risks of doing business with a small vendor versus the business benefits they can gain from using its software.
• Financial management: Although Adnovate has some capabilities for budgeting (e.g., costing) and market development funds, it does not provide as robust a set of financial management capabilities, compared with leading MRM vendors. This area is not a core focus for Adnovate and the capabilities are meant to augment its focus on marketing asset management and fulfillment, rather than to be a true financial management solution for enterprise marketing. Clients looking for more of a financial management tool for corporate marketing should assess Adnovate's capabilities in relation to their requirements before buying.
• Increased competition in Europe: Industry consolidation continues to bring larger and more-viable global players to the MRM market. Adnovate will be increasingly challenged in its European markets, as the integrated marketing management (IMM) vendors (such as IBM, Infor, Microsoft, SAP, SAS and Teradata) develop a strong MRM client base in Europe. We are also seeing many new European MRM vendors attempt to enter the market at the local level, particularly in the area of marketing asset management and local marketing enablement.
• Geographical strategy and growth: Although Adnovate has some clients using its solutions globally, it predominantly sells into the European market and lacks a physical presence in major geographies, such as North America and the Asia/Pacific region. Adnovate will need to develop a stronger presence in North America to grow faster during the next few years and to compete with the vendors establishing a more global presence. It can be difficult for a European vendor to expand into North America without a physical footprint in management and sales. Adnovate will need to compete with vendors such as BrandMaker, Elateral and Infor Orbis, which are establishing a physical presence and a growing client base in North America.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, Adnovate stated that they did so because the solution lacked robust MRM functionality and/or did not meet their MRM requirements.

BrandMaker

BrandMaker, headquartered in Germany, is a Leader for its broad and robust MRM solution and expanding presence in North America and Europe. Consider BrandMaker for its broad set of MRM capabilities, as well as its brand management focus.

Strengths

• Growth and geographical expansion: BrandMaker continues to expand its presence in North America as well as in Europe. It has over 875 customers, with 63 new enterprise customers and 52 new SMB customers. Although MRM bookings in 2012 almost doubled from 2011, overall MRM revenue for 2012 was up around 6%, due to stronger uptake of enterprise SaaS solutions that recognize revenue over a longer contract period. In 2012, there was a shift from license to SaaS revenue, with over 55% of enterprise deals based on the SaaS model in 2012. Gartner estimates that MRM revenue for 2012 was between $10 million and $12 million. BrandMaker raised $2.5 million in 2012, bringing its total cash or investment funding to $11.8 million. The vendor continued to grow its business in North America in 2012, and also opened its first offices in France and Poland. It has a strategic partnership in the U.K. with Marketing Logic to form BrandMaker UK.
• Partner ecosystem: BrandMaker continues to expand its partner ecosystem across a variety of partner types to help with reselling and support, as well as to extend functionality. It has consulting partners (MRMLogiq, MarketingHub, Jung von Matt/7Seas and wirDesign), sales partners (gateB, BrandMaker Russia, Marketing Logic and MarketSphere), implementation and fulfillment partners (arvato, gateB, MarketSphere and Marketing Logic), technology partners (Abox42, Across Systems, Magnolia, Comet, Getty Images, Jaspersoft and SDL), and research partners (ISC Paris and Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences). It has also selected the chief marketing officers (CMOs) of 15 clients, both large and midsize, to participate in its Customer Council, making customers partners in its strategy.
• R&D investment: BrandMaker provides a broad set of MRM capabilities for financial management, creative production management, marketing asset management and marketing fulfillment. BrandMaker made over 450 software enhancements in 2012. Key areas of product enhancements included financial management, job management and reviews, with ad hoc and template-based task management, task lists, and capabilities for moving beyond Web-to-publish to database publishing. A second major area of investment was integration across BrandMaker's modules to support key areas and processes, such as an integrated marketing portal for Media Asset Shop, an integrated brand management system for brand awareness and compliance, integration of Media Asset Shop and Media Pool for content enrichment, and BrandMaker Video Cloud to support local area marketing with video (e.g., POS).
• Deployment models: BrandMaker's solutions are all based on a Java EE architecture. The main delivery model for enterprise clients is hosted by BrandMaker as SaaS in the private cloud. Alternatively the solution can be deployed on-premises. Additionally BrandMaker provides lighter versions for SMBs as SaaS in the public cloud (Marketing Planner Module and Print & Agency solution, including Media Management and Media Pool). In 2011, BrandMaker increased its cloud deployments for enterprise customers significantly.
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated that they selected BrandMaker because its solution met their MRM requirements, as well as for its MRM expertise and understanding of business requirements.

Cautions

• Functional depth: One area in which clients and prospects have cited issues is the level of functional depth, particularly in planning and financial management, and in flexibility in workflow to make changes and adjust processes quickly. BrandMaker is working to close the gaps in these areas. It will need to develop a more visual drag-and-drop workflow tool to remain competitive with other leading MRM vendors in the market.
• Market visibility: Although BrandMaker is gaining more visibility, it does not yet have the market visibility of the other MRM Leaders. It is known more (particularly in Europe) for its brand and asset management capabilities than for its broad set of MRM capabilities, which also includes planning and financial management.
• Competition: Market consolidation continues to create larger global MRM vendors. BrandMaker will be increasingly challenged globally, as IMM vendors (such as IBM, Infor, Microsoft, SAP, SAS and Teradata) expand their traction and capabilities in marketing across their global footprints. It will need to continue to grow, make acquisitions and develop partnerships to extend its geographical reach to compete on a global scale.
• Potential acquisition target: BrandMaker is a small vendor, with less than $15 million in revenue. With its broad MRM solution and expanding vision for products and geographies, it could be an attractive acquisition target for large companies wanting to provide MRM capabilities. Gartner believes that consolidation in the MRM market will continue to increase during the next two to three years.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, BrandMaker stated that they did so because the solution lacked robust MRM functionality, did not meet their MRM requirements and/or due to its pricing (total cost of ownership).

BrandSystems

BrandSystems is a Niche Player based in Sweden that predominantly sells into the European market. European clients looking for a broad MRM solution with a focus on brand management should consider BrandSystems.

Strengths

• MRM growth: BrandSystems is projecting about 18% growth in MRM revenue from 2011 to 2012, which is strong compared with other European vendors. However, overall revenue did decline slightly. Gartner estimates the vendor's 2012 MRM revenue to be around $10 million. It has over 140 MRM clients and added 17 net new ones in 2012. BrandSystems is a stand-alone company in Edita Group.
• Broad solution: BrandSystems provides a broad set of MRM capabilities across all five competencies of MRM: planning and financial management, creative production management, DAM, marketing fulfillment, and reporting. However, it is best-known for its brand management capabilities. Marcom Manager is its MRM platform and consists of six core modules: Planning Manager, Order Manager, Production Manager, Media Bank, Media Generator and Brand Portal.
• R&D investment: Plans for 2013 include new modules for statistics and analysis; Resource Manager for managing human resources and hours; Purchase Manager for planning, monitoring and conducting procurement processes; Product Information Manager for managing marketing-related product information; and Social Media Analytics for monitoring and analyzing campaign impact in social media. New and enhanced features planned for 2013 include a new mobile and tablet user interface, improved task workflows, storage of different files, microsites for instructions, integration to social media, improved widgets, an iOS application, end-user customizable reports, and advanced entity move and transform (drag-and-drop capabilities to create new organizational structures and teams).
• Standardized development of ERP and CRM integrations: A major part of the road map for 2013 focuses on standardized integrations. Currently, integrations are completed on a client-by-client basis, with specific vendors for ERP or CRM. BrandSystems is developing standardized integration modules that will be vendor-neutral for ERP, CRM and lead management.
• Reason for vendor selection: The main reason references stated for selecting BrandSystems was a positive prior experience with the vendor.

Cautions

• Software-to-service ratio: BrandSystems' ratio is 54% software to 46% services, indicating that the vendor still has a strong reliance on service-based revenue and that its solutions require a fair degree of customization. Clients today prefer MRM solutions that are quick to implement and require little customization. To become a stronger contender in the MRM market, BrandSystems will have to move to more of a prepackaged software focus. BrandSystems' goal is to become more of a software company focused on product development, rather than building custom solutions. Some references reported greater than 50% customization of the solution.
• Different products: The MRM solutions span two different companies under Edita Group — BrandSystems and Citat. Although the MRM products are mainly part of BrandSystems, the two entities maintain different organizational structures and sales forces due to the need to serve existing client bases. Over time, these companies and products will need to become better integrated to meet customer demand for an integrated MRM solution from one vendor. Given that both companies are fairly small, there is also the risk that one of them could be sold by Edita Group, thus jeopardizing the overall value proposition.
• On-premises: BrandSystems' standard deployment model is hosted, either single tenant or multitenant SaaS. On-premises solutions are not a preferred deployment option and are only deployed on request by the client.
• Increased competition in Europe: Consolidation in the marketing application market is creating larger players in the MRM space. BrandSystems will be increasingly challenged in its European markets, as larger IMM vendors (such as IBM, Infor, SAP, SAS and Teradata) develop strong MRM client bases in Europe. As vendors such as BrandMaker expand into other geographies, such as North America, increasing pressure will be put on BrandSystems to enter new markets and win global MRM deals. There are also many small, new companies entering the MRM market in Europe, which will put more pressure on existing vendors to expand globally.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, BrandSystems stated that the main reasons they did so were pricing or total cost of ownership of the solution, followed by inadequate project implementation methodology.

BrandWizard

BrandWizard is a Niche Player for its creative development processes for brand management. Companies looking for brand management solutions for creative production management and marketing fulfillment should consider BrandWizard.

Strengths

• Growth and viability: BrandWizard reported 42% growth in 2012, adding 14 net new MRM clients. Gartner estimates its MRM revenue to be around $10 million. BrandWizard is based in North America, but has a presence in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region. By leveraging its parent company, Interbrand, which is a subsidiary of Omnicom Group, BrandWizard is expected to continue to grow. It is more viable than other companies its size, due to its connection to a large agency; approximately 50% of its clients are also Interbrand clients.
• Brand management vision: BrandWizard's solutions focus on automating brand management, including creative production management, marketing asset management and marketing fulfillment. It provides some basic budgeting and reporting capabilities for creative projects. The architecture is based on Microsoft .NET, and integrates tightly with Adobe InDesign CS3 Server and above. BrandWizard also has the ability to tap into the insights of Interbrand's clients and consultants.
• R&D investment: BrandWizard has invested in two main areas of its solution. One area is redefining the user experience from the outside in or from the user down to the technology platform. The other area is productizing the platform and providing more prepackaged offerings, rather than developing custom solutions for each client. The vendor now has six modules it sells to clients focused on (1) content management system, (2) DAM repository or brand libraries, (3) showcases of best practices and case studies, (4) template automation, (5) workflow for brand approvals, and (6) collaboration via virtual workspaces and real-time commenting on content. BrandWizard continues to make improvements in the area of resource and planning around budgeting and project management (tracking task hours). A main focus for 2013 will be on improved collaboration capabilities.
• Deployment options: BrandWizard supports on-premises and hosted deployment options. It can support a multitenant, SaaS deployment model with its hosted solutions. Few companies are using the solution on-premises or in a SaaS model. Most customers (95% of the active base) choose the hosted solution. Pricing can be either an upfront fee followed by monthly hosting fees or a pay-as-you-go model per month. Price is essentially the same, regardless of the method chosen.
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated that they selected the solution because it met their MRM requirements and because BrandWizard was viewed as a strategic partner.

Cautions

• Strategic planning and financial management: Although BrandWizard has some basic planning (team setting) and budgeting capabilities for creative projects and can store/market funds, it does not provide a prepackaged solution for strategic planning and financial management at the corporate level. It does continue to invest in this area, but its capabilities are not as robust as some of the MRM Leaders in this area. Clients can customize capabilities for planning and financial management. Companies looking for prepackaged enterprise marketing planning, budgeting and automated financial management should consider alternative MRM providers.
• Market visibility and scalability: BrandWizard must continue to gain broader visibility to grow faster. It is one of the smaller vendors, in terms of MRM revenue and clients, evaluated in this Magic Quadrant. It does not have the market recognition that other marketing asset management vendors have, and, therefore, has a strong reliance on its relationship with Omnicom Group and Interbrand to grow. Although BrandWizard now provides a prepackaged solution, some references reported 30% or higher customization requirements.
• Increased competition: To continue to compete in this market, BrandWizard will need to look to partnerships and acquisitions, or will need to build capabilities in other MRM areas, such as planning and financial management. Consolidation will continue in the market, creating larger players with more expanded capabilities.
• Agency reliance: Companies seeking to regain control over agencies and agency spending will likely separate creative work from technology investments, and move toward more pure-play software companies for MRM investment. Therefore, BrandWizard will need to develop a more direct sales approach and rely less on the Interbrand relationship.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, BrandWizard stated that they did so because of pricing/total cost of ownership, followed by the fact that the solution did not meet their MRM requirements and lacked the preferred deployment option.

Capital ID

Capital ID, headquartered in the Netherlands, is a Niche Player for its regional penetration of clients in Europe (particularly Northern Europe) and for its strong focus on the brand management aspects of MRM. European-based companies interested in brand management and media planning should consider Capital ID.

Strengths

• Growth: In 2012, Capital ID reported growth of approximately 58%. Gartner estimates Capital ID generated between $10 million and $11 million in MRM revenue in 2011. Capital ID has over 36 MRM customers, adding 22 new clients in 2012.
• Brand management and marketing fulfillment: Capital ID's MRM solution focuses primarily on brand management components, including creative production management (configurable workflow and project management), content management (media/image repository), marketing fulfillment (including procurement, purchasing and inventory functionality) and media planning (budgeting and project management). It positions its MRM solution as portals for brand management, production management, agency management, campaign management, marketing procurement and event management. R&D investments in 2012 included enhancements to workflow, agency management questionnaires, product management, standard connection/interfaces/APIs to ERP and CRM systems, and the user interface. Key areas for investment in 2013 include more best-practice solutions that make configuration easier for partners, support for video editing and a standard interface with a mobile application platform to provide mobile MRM functionality via a partnership with Navarra/RAM.
• Pitney Bowes partnership: The vendor has a partnership with Pitney Bowes to integrate Capital ID's MRM capabilities for planning, budgeting and creative production into Pitney Bowes' Portrait Software campaign management application. The two vendors have developed technical integrations for a proof of concept, and are working with four joint customers on integrations. In 2013, it will launch a sales program aimed at the joint value proposition of the combined solution, training salespeople on the respective products.
• Deployment options: ID Manager is available as an on-premises, hosted or SaaS solution. Rackspace provides third-party hosting. Although it offers a SaaS solution, it has few clients using that deployment model and is not aggressively pushing SaaS deployments in the market.
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated they selected Capital ID because it was viewed as a strategic partner and the solution met their MRM requirements.

Cautions

• Client attrition: Although overall MRM revenue is growing and Capital ID is adding new clients, we are seeing signs of attrition to other MRM vendors in the market. Capital ID will need to increase its customer retention, while adding new clients, if it wants to continue to grow at a faster rate.
• Financial management: Although the vendor provides planning, budgeting and financial management capabilities, these are not as robust as some of the leading MRM vendors' solutions and are used primarily for creative projects and marketing content. Clients should carefully evaluate these capabilities against their requirements, and should seek references using the solution at the corporate marketing level.
• Increased competition in Europe: Consolidation in the marketing application market is creating larger players in the MRM space. Capital ID will be increasingly challenged in its European markets, as larger IMM vendors (such as IBM, Infor, Microsoft, SAP, SAS and Teradata) develop strong MRM client bases in Europe. As vendors such as BrandMaker successfully expand into other geographies, such as North America, increasing pressure will be put on Capital ID to enter new markets and win global MRM deals. We also see many small, new companies entering the MRM markets in Europe, which will put more pressure on existing vendors to expand globally. Capital ID will need to leverage its partnership with Pitney Bowes to expand both in Europe and North America.
• Potential acquisition candidate: As a small vendor, with less than $15 million in revenue in 2012, Capital ID is susceptible to strong fluctuations in the market. It could be an attractive acquisition target for companies wanting to augment their MRM capabilities, particularly for brand management, or to expand into or across Europe. Gartner expects increased consolidation in the market during the next three years, particularly in Europe, where many small vendors are headquartered. Clients should carefully weigh the risks of doing business with a small vendor versus the business benefits they can gain from using its software.

Code Worldwide

Code Worldwide is a Visionary for its focus on the end-to-end process for planning, managing, executing and measuring creative advertising campaigns and promotions. Consider Code if your company is focused on automating the creative advertising and branding process.

Strengths

• Viability: Code Worldwide is a wholly owned subsidiary of Omnicom Group, which provides financial backing, access to clients and solution reselling to its client base. Code reports 13% revenue growth in MRM from 2011 to 2012. Gartner estimates that MRM-related revenue is around $12 million.
• Focus on creative advertising and branding: The adZU solution from Code places emphasis on the end-to-end and closed loop process for creative advertising campaigns and promotions. It supports planning, budgeting, creative production, asset management, fulfillment, and measurement and reporting as part of this process. The cohesiveness of its process enables Code to provide robust reporting and dashboards for ROI of the advertising campaigns, enabling clients to determine the optimal media mix. Media supported, which can be purchased in separate modules, includes print, TV/video, radio, digital display, direct mail, email, Web and mobile. Additional modules for purchase include marketing planning and multilanguage support.
• R&D investment: Key areas of investment in 2012 include strategic planning, adding new touchpoints (e.g., social, locally targeted display or banner advertising and mobile) and media (paid, owned and earned), and leveraging big data for analysis and reporting in its dashboards. In 2013, R&D investment will focus on digital touchpoints including digital display and mobile advertising, geographically targeted content, enhancing the use of big data and analysis to create insight, additional approval management features and enhancing the user experience. The adZU solution is built on Microsoft .NET with a Microsoft SQL database. The platform leverages Adobe InDesign, Flash and Flex technologies. The core adZU solution includes asset and content management, templates, workflow, administration of companies/users and integration services. The solution is available on-premises or hosted (both single tenant and SaaS).
• Engagement model: Code emphasizes high-touch consulting services preimplementation and postimplementation for business definition, training and derivation of business value. However, it does not sacrifice software at the expense of service, or provide services as part of a heavily customized solution. The Microsoft .NET architecture provides a productized platform that requires low customization and utilizes configuration. Its software-to-service ratio is healthier than most of the other small MRM vendors, with the ratio for Code at 75% software to 25% services. Its ability to configure, rather than customize, enables other higher-value and more strategic consulting services.
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated that they selected the solution because of Code's understanding of marketing business requirements and/or because the vendor was viewed as a strategic partner.

Cautions

• Reliance on Omnicom Group: Companies are increasingly turning toward software vendors with unbiased agency views. Although Code supports multiple agencies within its solution, and has a commitment to unbiased agency views and privacy of agency information, recommendations or reselling by Omnicom Group could present at least a perceived bias to potential clients and prospects of Code Worldwide. Therefore, the vendor will need to continue to develop its direct selling model and rely less on the Omnicom Group relationship. However, Code reports that its non-Omnicom Group client base now represents 55% to 65% of its total customer base. So, Code is decreasing its reliance on Omnicom Group for new clients. Many of the non-Omnicom Group clients are either direct client relationships or come through agencies outside Omnicom Group.
• Financial management: Although Code Worldwide provides more-advanced capabilities for budgeting and planning, compared with other brand-management-focused vendors, these are tightly tied to creative advertising and media promotion campaigns, rather than supporting all types of marketing campaigns and programs at the enterprise marketing level. The solution provides some planning and budgeting details around the marketing campaigns and media, but lacks the granularity of more detailed spend components and tasks, compared with some of the more robust planning and financial management solutions.
• Workflow: There is no visual drag-and-drop workflow tool for routing, reviews, approvals and markups. Processes are automated by configuration of the application and brand, and compliance controls are established through the use of templates that control the creative aspects of the ads and promotions that can be changed.
• Increasing competition: As other MRM vendors develop more-robust capabilities for creative advertising and fulfillment, Code will face increasing competition. Consolidation in the marketing application market is creating larger players in the MRM space. Code will be increasingly challenged as larger IMM vendors (such as IBM, Infor, SAP, SAS and Teradata) develop strong MRM client bases. Consolidation will likely continue in the market, particularly around marketing asset management and marketing fulfillment. Companies seeking to regain control over agencies and agency spending will be more likely to separate creative work from technology investments, and to move toward more pure-play software companies for MRM investment.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, Code Worldwide stated that they did so because the solution lacked robust MRM functionality, did not meet their MRM requirements and/or due to pricing (total cost of ownership). Some Code references also referred to the high customization requirements for the solution (at around 80% to 90%). To continue to grow, Code will need to provide more prepackaged capabilities, as the market is moving in that direction.

Direxxis

Direxxis, headquartered in the United States, is a Niche Player for its focus on MRM capabilities around asset management and fulfillment as part of a distributed marketing process, primarily in the North American market. Consider Direxxis if your company is North-American-based and looking for asset management and fulfillment capabilities to support a decentralized field force.

Strengths

• Growth: Direxxis reports approximately 30% revenue growth in MRM from 2011 to 2012, with 16 net new clients. Gartner estimates Direxxis generated between $14 million and $16 million in MRM revenue in 2011.
• Marketing asset management and fulfillment: The core value proposition for the current solution is focused on marketing asset management and fulfillment capabilities to support a distributed marketing process in decentralized marketing organizations, with local marketing enablement.
• MRM R&D and road map: A replatform and new user interface are planned for 2013. Once the replatform is completed, Direxxis plans to expand its MRM capabilities into financial planning and creative production management. Plans for the product road map include a new marketing financial planning module (annual planning and budgeting tools, the ability to track actual versus plans, and a visual marketing calendar), a new marketing content development module (creative content workflow and approvals and project management), improved analytics engine, content customization improvements (dynamic personalization/customization), expanded social media module and social advertising module, advertising placement services, and continued strategic integrations (social listening, performance tracking, campaign management and content management).
• Solution options, SaaS and pricing: Direxxis has four solution options, called Editions — Group Edition, Professional Edition, Enterprise Edition and Unlimited Edition — as part of its dmEDGE 4.0 solution. The solution features a multitenant data architecture. The dmEDGE servers and computing resources are shared between all of the dmEDGE clients on a server, but each client has its own set of data that remains logically isolated from data that belongs to all other tenants. Data is isolated by storing each client's (tenant's) data in separate databases. Each client has its own dedicated set of application server instances. Pricing is straightforward for the different Editions, so clients can select the one that's most appropriate for their requirements. The pricing model uses a user-based SaaS model, with a monthly fee structure based on the number of dmEDGE modules and users required per client. There is a one-time fee for each edition for setup and implementation.
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated they selected the solution because it met their MRM requirements.

Cautions

• Creative production management: Although Direxxis has added an approval module, it has historically not provided robust MRM capabilities via workflow and project management for managing the creative review and production processes. It does not offer a visual drag-and-drop workflow tool, calendaring or project management capabilities. It plans to make enhancements in this area once the replatform is completed. Clients and prospects should carefully assess whether the current capabilities adequately meet their requirements.
• Financial management: dmEDGE does not currently have financial management capabilities for budgeting and tracking marketing spending, and it does not provide procurement or agency/vendor management capabilities. It does allow companies to check accounts and balances in the Marketing Fulfillment & Delivery Module. It plans to add a financial planning module once the replatform is complete. Prospects looking for financial management capabilities should consider alternatives. Clients seeking to expand their capabilities into financial planning should evaluate the Direxxis road map in this area.
• On-premises deployment option: This is not a standard option. Direxxis is a marketing service provider, as well as a technology provider, and prefers to host its dmEDGE solution in its SaaS model; however, on-premises is a custom option. Direxxis is moving to more of a software model, as opposed to a service model focus. A few references noted customization requirements of over 50%, so Direxxis needs to work to ensure that its capabilities are prepackaged better and configurable to meet client requirements.
• Competition and acquisition target: Direxxis will face increased competition as European brand management and marketing fulfillment vendors (e.g., BrandMaker and Elateral) enter the North American market, and vendors such as North Plains (with its acquisition of Vyre) move into the MRM market. Direxxis will need to market itself more broadly in North America to compete. As consolidation continues, Gartner expects that large global MRM and IMM players (such as Teradata, SAP and SAS) will also acquire stronger marketing fulfillment capabilities. As marketing fulfillment and distributed marketing management become stronger parts of MRM requirements, Direxxis could be an attractive acquisition target for vendors looking to expand their solutions in those areas, or for European vendors looking to expand into the North American market. Direxxis will also need to expand into other regions, such as Europe and, eventually, the Asia/Pacific region, to compete on a more global level.

Elateral

Elateral is a Niche Player for its focus on marketing fulfillment and brand management. Consider Elateral for its strong marketing fulfillment solution and brand management capabilities.

Strengths

• Growth: After a disappointing year in 2011, Elateral has returned to growth in 2012, reporting a 30% increase in revenue from 2011 to 2012. It added more than 15 new clients in 2012, and Gartner estimates that Elateral generated about $10 million in MRM revenue in 2012. With Elateral's subscription-based pricing, some revenue initiated through deals won in 2012 will be recognized in later years. Therefore, its growth in 2012 is a bit understated.
• R&D investment: Key areas of product focus in 2012 included multichannel/multimedia customization of content, improved reporting and dashboards (e.g., content consumption), product mix optimization to understand the economic trade-offs in using different types of content, promotional packaging and displays, and ordering of customized packaging and materials. Key areas of focus in 2013 include content analytics, social integration, 3D content views and kitting, shelf displays, and publishing through staging.
• Marketing fulfillment and brand management: Elateral specializes in the marketing fulfillment capabilities of MRM, where it continues to set the visionary pace for the market and supports over 202 countries with a diverse set of languages, including double-byte, Unicode, right-left reading, and Arabic and Thai scripts. Elateral supports companies trying to manage their brand assets and marketing content by enabling them to leverage those assets globally. Its marketing fulfillment capabilities have moved beyond a focus on print to support multichannel fulfillment.
• SaaS: Elateral supports most clients on a multitenant SaaS solution, but, in the case of its largest implementations, will make exceptions to host on a separate instance.
• Reasons for solution selection: References stated that they selected Elateral for its robust MRM functionality that met their MRM requirements.

Cautions

• Software-to-service ratio: Despite moving to a more prepackaged solution and productized platform, the vendor's software-to-service ratio is around 50% software to 50% services. A few references have stated that more than 50% of the solution required customization. However, with the investment in its next-generation platform, clients should not require as much customization and should be able to more easily configure the solution. Elateral has a high service element, because of the ongoing provision of content-related services (loading new assets and campaigns, mainly through its partnership with Accenture) and its focus on enabling clients to achieve value throughout the customer life cycle. Healthy ratios for software companies tend to fall into the 70% to 75% software to 25% to 30% service range. Because software and service business models are different, it is challenging for small companies to maintain a balance between software and services at a 50-50 ratio and still be able to scale the company as quickly as those that focus predominantly on software. Elateral will need to continue to seek partners such as Accenture to offload more of its services.
• Planning, financial management and project management capabilities: The vendor lacks MRM capabilities beyond those related to fulfillment and asset management, particularly for planning and financial management. It lacks a robust workflow tool for managing creative projects and generating reviews and approvals. Clients looking for planning and financial management capabilities or production management capabilities should carefully evaluate references and consider alternatives. References were dissatisfied with its planning and calendaring capabilities, providing an average rating of 2 out of 7.
• On-premises: Elateral does not support an on-premises deployment option.
• Long-term viability: Elateral's predominant and visionary focus on marketing fulfillment could make it an attractive acquisition candidate for vendors that are adding greater marketing fulfillment capabilities to their MRM solutions. This is a noted area of weakness for several MRM vendors. As this area of MRM matures, Gartner expects other MRM vendors to build or acquire these capabilities to round out their MRM solutions. Consolidation of marketing and MRM capabilities is increasing, and Gartner predicts that acquisition of marketing fulfillment capabilities will be part of the next wave of MRM consolidation as early as 2013. To continue to compete as a stand-alone vendor in the market, Elateral will need to expand its MRM capabilities, particularly in the area of creative production management, as clients are increasingly asking for end-to-end solutions to manage the creative life cycle from idea to fulfillment.

IBM

IBM is a Leader in MRM for its broad MRM solution and continued traction. Consider the Unica product for its planning, budgeting and production management capabilities, particularly if your MRM requirements include integration with campaign management.

Strengths

• Viability and growth: IBM is a large global company with $106.9 billion in revenue in 2011, making it one of the more viable vendors in this market. IBM reported 131% year-over-year growth for its Enterprise Marketing Management group from 2011 to 2012. It reports adding 80 new customers using MRM functionality in 2012. Gartner estimates MRM-related revenue of between $25 million and $35 million for 2012.
• R&D investment: IBM made investments in both its on-premises and SaaS MRM solutions in 2012. In the first half of 2012, IBM released Marketing Operations 8.6. enhancements, focused on making project creation easier, managing assignments for out of the office, making usability improvements through the dashboard, enabling enhanced alert management with user-defined alert settings, and providing advanced campaign planning capabilities via life cycle offer management. IBM released version 9 in January 2013, which includes reports on project health status, Quick Link portlets for users to select frequent actions quickly on a dashboard, the ability to import any workflow from the workflow library, preconfigured reasons for denying approval requests, and updated icons and artwork on workflow to improve usability. IBM had four releases of its Marketing Operations On Demand solution in 2012. Enhancements included improvements to the job queue; project schedule archiving; updates to the user interface; new alert functionality for to do's; localization capabilities for French, German and Spanish; improved reporting; and additional annotation tools for content reviews. Plans for 2013 include continued enhancements to reporting, improved calendar views, improved approvals, budgetary enhancements and improved markup capabilities. In addition, there are plans to include mobile capabilities for on-the-go marketing leaders and managers, and a road map for marketing performance management and optimization through 2015.
• Quark partnership: In the second half of 2012, IBM announced a marketing partnership with Quark around MRM to improve its capabilities supporting the creative and fulfillment process. The Quark partnership is meant to deliver marketing publishing and distributed marketing capabilities. Although IBM and Quark have several clients in common, none have integrated the solution to date. The two vendors are in the process of identifying a joint customer and plan to start building technical integrations in 2013.
• Deployment options: IBM offers IBM Marketing Operations as an on-premises solution and as a hosted solution through third-party vendors (such as Accenture, Acxiom, Merkle and Epsilon). IBM Marketing Operations OnDemand is its on-demand, multitenant SaaS solution.
• Reasons for solution selection: References selected IBM because the solution met their MRM requirements and for pricing (total cost of ownership).

Cautions

• Marketing asset management and fulfillment: Like some of the other leading MRM vendors, IBM chooses to partner for more robust marketing asset management and fulfillment solutions as part of its marketing suite. It has a new partnership with Quark for publishing and distributed marketing capabilities, but has yet to develop technical integrations between Quark's Brand Manager and IBM's Marketing Operations solution. As requirements for marketing fulfillment as part of an MRM or brand management solution increase, IBM will need to build or buy in this area to compete. A lack of marketing asset management and fulfillment capabilities is one reason that MRM prospects do not consider IBM for MRM. References were very dissatisfied with the marketing fulfillment capabilities, providing an average rating of 1 out of 7.
• Partner risk: IBM will rely on its partnership with Quark for marketing asset management and fulfillment capabilities There is always the risk that Quark could be acquired by a competitor, which would put the partnership at risk, as well as customers that are using the functionality. Gartner has witnessed that clients prefer to have the vendor fully own the MRM functionality, rather than rely on partnerships. Technical integrations have not yet been built, so an integrated value proposition has not yet been demonstrated between Quark and IBM products. IBM and Quark are working to establish their first joint customer.
• Depth and robustness of MRM functionality: Although IBM provides a broad solution and has growing market momentum, prospects cite a lack of robust or deep MRM functionality (e.g., workflow and project management) as one of the main reasons for not putting it on their shortlists for consideration alongside some of the other Leaders, or not selecting it for MRM. A few clients have told Gartner that they are replacing the IBM MRM solution in their creative areas of marketing for more-robust solutions, but will leave the IBM solution in the database marketing area where MRM is used to augment campaign planning. As a result, other vendors have closed gaps and surpassed IBM in terms of vision and execution in 2012. IBM needs to refocus on the core MRM buying center and value proposition, expanding its vision beyond closing gaps with other Leaders or risk losing its leadership position in this market. IBM is focusing R&D to help close these gaps with the competition.
• Increased competition: As market consolidation continues, IBM will face increased competition from vendors such as Infor, Microsoft, North Plains, SAS and Teradata. These vendors acquired smaller companies focused on MRM and marketing solutions that had good solutions, but not the resources, to scale globally. Many of the market Leaders are now part of larger companies, putting IBM in a more global set of competitors. It will need to deepen its functionality and innovate in MRM to remain a Leader.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, IBM stated that the main reason they did so was because the solution did not meet their MRM requirements.

Infor Orbis

Infor Orbis is a Leader for its broad MRM vision and capabilities, its increasing market traction, and its improved viability as part of Infor. Companies looking for an MRM vendor with a broad set of MRM capabilities should consider Infor Orbis.

Strengths

• Growth and improved viability: Gartner estimates that MRM revenue for Infor Orbis has grown around 30% from 2011 to 2012 and is between $10 million and $12 million. It added approximately 30 new MRM clients in 2012. The vendor is a Leader for its broad MRM vision and capabilities, and for its growing expansion and market traction in North America. Companies looking for an MRM vendor with a broad set of MRM capabilities should consider Orbis Global. In December 2012, Orbis Global was acquired by Infor, thus improving its overall viability and ability to scale, and increasing its broader geographical potential. It currently operates under the name Infor Orbis, and will operate as a separate division in the short term, while it is being integrated with Infor Epiphany during the next 12 months.
• R&D investment: Infor Orbis offers a broad MRM solution across all five MRM competency areas, with a focus on closing the operational marketing loop, from planning to execution to measurement and optimization. The vendor released over 300 new features in 2012, including a new marketing analytics module. This module includes customizable views and dashboards, click-through reporting, drag-and-drop report development, embedded reports, and access to multiple databases. Infor Orbis also rebuilt its financial module in 2012, increasing both the breadth and depth of its capabilities with a fully configurable n-node budget hierarchy, richer activity-level financial planning and tracking, and simple top-level financial summaries. The vendor also made improvements to its asset management and workflow capabilities. It developed integrations to Infor Epiphany, and basic planning capabilities are now available in Inforce Marketing, built on Force.com from salesforce.com. Further integration with salesforce.com and Infor are planned in 2013. Other plans for 2013 for the Infor Orbis MRM solution include continued enhancements to analytics, the marketing calendar, social integrations and its user interface.
• Insight and optimization vision: Infor Orbis is moving from its traditional vision for MRM of improving operational efficiency toward a vision that leverages insights for optimization and planning to close the loop; hence, its focus on and R&D for marketing analytics and performance management. Insight-driven decision management will provide enhanced data availability and insights for resources, agencies, competitors, partners, assets, products, customers, offers, programs, campaigns, results, budgets, business objectives, costs and marketing vehicles.
• Deployment models: Infor Orbis supports both multitenant SaaS and separate-instance hosted models. As part of Infor, the vendor now supports on-premises deployment. Its rapid implementation program enables midmarket clients to implement the application in as little as a few days, and enterprise clients in as little as one month.
• Reasons for vendor selection: References stated that the main reasons they selected Infor Orbis were for its MRM expertise and understanding of marketing business requirements.

Cautions

• Time to achieve global scale: It will take time to adequately train Infor consultants and customer support services on the solution. Gartner expects global availability to take at least 18 to 24 months to complete.
• Integration and possible platform migration: Infor Orbis will remain on the current technology architecture on which it was developed, assuming future feature enhancements do not necessitate an architecture change. As part of Infor's open SOA strategy, all integration and expansion to other Infor products, such as Infor Epiphany, Infor ERP or Infor Financials, will be based on Infor's middleware product, Infor Ion, and the user experience strategy will be based on Infor Ion Experience. Therefore, clients looking at a broader IMM solution may need to invest in Infor Ion, and some changes to the user interface are anticipated. There is a possibility that Infor Orbis will move to a new platform that supports both campaign management and MRM, particularly if new functionality necessitates the move. If this happens, clients should expect to migrate to the new platform to adopt those capabilities.
• Increased competition: As part of Infor, Infor Orbis will face strong competition from IBM, SAP, SAS and Teradata as it expands globally and into larger enterprises. It will need to continue to expand the breadth and depth of its product, and to innovate in new areas of MRM to remain competitive.
• Market visibility: Although Infor Orbis improved its geographical reach and market visibility in 2012, it does not yet have the market visibility of some of the other MRM Leaders. Infor has even less visibility as an MRM provider. As Infor Orbis transitions and becomes part of the Infor Epiphany family, Infor will need to work more aggressively on its MRM marketing to raise its visibility as an MRM Leader.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, Infor Orbis stated that the main reasons they did so were that the solution did not meet their MRM requirements, poor response to RFPs and/or poor demonstration of solution capabilities.

MarketingPilot (a Microsoft company)

MarketingPilot Software (a Microsoft company) is a Visionary for its broad MRM vision and capabilities, particularly for the midmarket. The acquisition by Microsoft should increase MarketingPilot's overall viability, and, with training and execution of the Microsoft partner network, it could become a global Leader in MRM during the next few years. Companies, particularly those in the midmarket, looking for a broad MRM solution with good functionality at a lower price point should consider MarketingPilot.

Strengths

• Growth, increased viability and geographical expansion: MarketingPilot reports that, during 2012, new license revenue was up approximately 75% and new subscription revenue (cloud) was up 89%. Gartner estimates the vendor's MRM revenue for 2012 at between $12 million and $14 million. Although many of its clients remain in the midmarket, larger enterprise clients are increasingly considering MarketingPilot, bringing the vendor into more direct competition with Teradata, Infor Orbis and IBM. In 2012, Microsoft acquired MarketingPilot, thus increasing its overall viability and bringing it more global opportunities for growth. Its marketing solutions will be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Microsoft will begin training its 17,000 consulting service staff and 10,000 partners worldwide, starting with the U.S. and Canada, then moving to Europe and, over time, the rest of the world.
• R&D investment: The vendor provides a broad set of MRM capabilities for planning, budgeting, procurement, project management, content/asset management, media buying and performance management. However, its capabilities are not as deep or complex as some of the other market Leaders, making it more attractive to midmarket buyers. Improvements in 2012 included functionality improvements for DAM, production management, and approvals and routing, as well as platform enhancements and performance improvements. Plans for 2013 include a user interface update to a Windows 8-style interface and continued integration to Dynamics CRM. Also in 2013, plans call for integration of the advertising and media modules with Nielsen and Arbitron. Today, MarketingPilot supports integration with Google AdWords. Since the acquisition, the R&D team has significantly grown, which will accelerate future product enhancement and integration with Dynamics CRM. The current MarketingPilot solution is based on the Microsoft platform and technologies.
• Innovation: MarketingPilot is showing thought leadership in two key areas of MRM. One area is autonomous marketing, where the systems are self-prescribing and self-learning without manual intervention, as opposed to simply enabling companies to do what they've always done faster and more efficiently. The other area is social MRM, enabling better collaboration among marketing teams and with agencies. Microsoft technologies, such as Skype, Lync, Yammer, Xbox and Bing, will be leveraged to created the next generation of collaboration in the MRM solution.
• Deployment options: Microsoft offers MarketingPilot through two delivery options: on-premises and on-demand (SaaS) with on-demand being the preferred option.
• Reasons for vendor selection: References stated that they selected MarketingPilot for its robust MRM functionality, pricing (total cost of ownership) and flexibility of deployment options.

Cautions

• Marketing fulfillment: Although MarketingPilot offers some capabilities in this area, it does not provide print, procurement and localization capabilities. R&D investment in marketing fulfillment has not been as high as in the areas of planning, financial management and creative production management. Clients with robust fulfillment requirements will need to consider alternatives or plan to integrate a third-party application with MarketingPilot.
• Platform and possible product migration: Although no decision has been made to migrate MarketingPilot to a new Microsoft Platform, the possibility remains that Microsoft will migrate MarketingPilot functionality to the Dynamics CRM platform in the future, to provide a tightly integrated CRM on-demand offering. Currently, Microsoft will continue to support clients and develop MRM capabilities on the MarketingPilot platform. If it decides to move the marketing functionality of MarketingPilot to a new platform, current Microsoft Dynamics CRM clients and prospects would benefit from a more tightly integrated CRM solution, but MarketingPilot clients could face an eventual migration to a new platform. Clients and prospects should monitor Microsoft's plans for integration with Dynamics CRM, the migration of marketing capabilities to the Dynamics CRM platform and future product development on the current MarketingPilot platform.
• Increased competition in the large enterprise market: MarketingPilot is an attractive solution for the midmarket, but will face increasing competition from other large vendors (such as Teradata, Infor, SAS and IBM) focused on MRM in large enterprises as it moves upmarket toward larger enterprises.
• Time to achieve global scale: MarketingPilot has predominantly been focused on North America. The product requires some additional internationalization capabilities to be truly global. It also will take time to adequately train Microsoft consultants and partners on the solution. We anticipate that Microsoft will develop a phased approach that focuses on English-speaking companies in North America and Europe first. Full internationalization of the product may depend on the development of the new platform for the solution. Gartner expects global availability to take at least two years to complete.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, MarketingPilot stated that the main reason they did so was pricing or total cost of ownership of the solution. Although MarketingPilot is not the most expensive solution evaluated in this Magic Quadrant, it may be a bit more expensive for prospects seeking lower-cost SaaS-only solutions.

North Plains-Vyre

North Plains-Vyre is a Visionary for its expanding MRM vision across the five competencies of MRM and for its focus on robust management of the creative marketing life cycle. Companies interested in a broad set of MRM capabilities, with a focus on creative life cycle and brand management, should consider North Plains-Vyre.

Strengths

• Growth and improved overall viability: North Plains-Vyre reports around 45% growth in MRM from 2011 to 2012. Gartner estimates the vendor's MRM revenue for 2012 to be around $10 million for Vyre prior to the North Plains acquisition. We estimate overall combined revenue for North Plains and Vyre to be around $45 million, with around $25 million to $27 million of that from MRM. Vyre added 16 to 18 new MRM customers in 2012. Vyre had over 60 customers prior to the acquisition. North Plains has over 1,300 customers in total, adding 35 for MRM-related capabilities in 2012. The acquisition by North Plains improves Vyre's overall viability and increases its global potential, particularly in North America and Europe. Gartner speculates that North Plains has $60 million in investment from private equity.
• Vision for creative marketing life cycle: Combined with its earlier Xinet acquisition, North Plains can now offer customers prepackaged solutions for managing the creative marketing life cycle. The combination of Vyre's MRM solutions (On Brand and Unify) with Telescope (for DAM) and Xinet (for workflow) will enable a robust, end-to-end solution for managing the creative life cycle from idea to fulfillment. This acquisition improves the overall vision for managing creative processes, focused on creative production, DAM and brand management. Integration among the solutions will enable a closed-loop process across the entire creative life cycle, and will include agencies, advertising platforms and premedia companies.
• R&D investment: In 2012, new features and enhancements for the original Vyre solutions (Unify and On Brand) included integration with Viki for packaging and markup annotations, including video annotations, HTML5 video support, enhanced reporting with more configurable dashboards and new reports, improvements in creative workflows, enhancements to budgeting and planning, improvements in campaign and task views, enhanced campaign calendar, and a new Web-to-print module. It also developed a multitenant version of its On Brand solution to create a true SaaS offering with a lower price point. The SaaS solution will also offer an agency option, where agencies can support multiple clients on one solution, but keep them partitioned from one another. Future plans include interoperability between the acquired solutions from Vyre (On Brand and Unify) with Xinet and Telescope, continued enhancements to the marketing calendar, budgeting features, rights management and permissions, and reporting and analytics. New areas will focus on publishing to social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, and mobile support for iOS applications, such as the review and approval of content. The Xinet solution provides file-based management of creative content in production, integration with the Adobe Creative Suite and metadata-driven workflows that automate the production process. Xinet supports over 80 file formats, including images, documents, video, audio, HTML, interactive and computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) files. The Xinet solution supports the marketing communications, advertising, premedia, packaging and retail industries. Integration with Xinet will deepen Vyre's creative production management capabilities and will expand them more broadly across the marketing ecosystem.
• Deployment options: North Plains-Vyre offers its custom-made MRM solutions as an on-premises license option. Vyre's On Brand is based on the SaaS model and can be hosted (single-tenant model) or on-demand (multitenant model). The Telescope offering from North Plains is available on-premises, on-demand and hosted.

Cautions

• Product integration: Gartner estimates that process-level integrations for all four products (Xinet, Telescope, On Brand and Unify), such as workflow and file transfers, could take two years to complete. Furthermore, North Plains is now majority-owned by Accel-KKR, so we expect continued growth by acquisition. Additional acquisitions would further complicate full integration. In December 2012, North Plains released ConnectR, an interoperability module for Xinet and Telescope.
• Platform migration: Although North Plains plans to offer its solutions (On Brand, Unify, Telescope and Xinet) separately, and to continue to support clients and develop MRM capabilities on its existing platform, it will likely move to a more common platform that supports all solutions. Over time, more and more of the new MRM functionality will be placed on the new platform and clients will be expected to migrate to this platform to adopt those capabilities. Clients should expect a potential migration within three years of the 2012 acquisition.
• Software-to-service ratio: Both Vyre and North Plains have low software-to-service ratios, compared with many of the other MRM vendors. Software represents less than 50% of both companies' revenue for 2012. North Plains will need to increase its software-to-service ratio to continue to grow and scale the business. As part of North Plains, Vyre will need to focus more on selling its out-of-the-box On Brand solution and focus less on customized solutions with Unify. MRM prospects increasingly prefer prepackaged solutions over customized ones.
• Financial management: Although Vyre continued to make enhancements to its planning and budgeting capabilities, these do not offer the same level of complexity and advanced features, compared with the MRM Leaders in this area. With the acquisition by North Plains, the focus and vision is better-established for creative production management, marketing asset management and marketing fulfillment than it is for full-blown financial management capabilities. Clients should carefully evaluate their requirements against North Plains' current capabilities and road map for solutions in this area, and should seek out references that are using these capabilities.
• Increased competition: Market consolidation has created some large global MRM providers. North Plains will be increasingly challenged by the global IMM vendors (such as IBM, Infor, Microsoft, SAP, SAS and Teradata) that are investing heavily in MRM. However, it will be stronger in DAM and marketing fulfillment, which are areas of weakness for some of the larger vendors. The vendor will face increased competition from companies such as BrandMaker, Elateral and Saepio. Gartner expects that the larger IMM vendors will ultimately make an acquisition in the areas of marketing asset management and fulfillment.

PTI Marketing Technologies

PTI Marketing Technologies, a U.S.-based company, is a Niche Player for its focus on marketing asset management, fulfillment and distribution within the broader MRM context. Clients looking for robust marketing fulfillment capabilities as part of an MRM solution should consider PTI.

Strengths

• New customers: PTI reports MRM growth of around 18% from 2011 to 2012. It added 72 new customers, but many are in the midmarket and at lower deal averages than many of the other MRM vendors in this Magic Quadrant. Gartner estimates PTI's 2012 MRM-related revenue at between $9 million and $10 million. It will need to improve its revenue growth in 2013 to meet the minimum criteria and remain on the MRM Magic Quadrant.
• Marketing fulfillment: The MarcomCentral solution provides robust capabilities for marketing fulfillment, with budgeting, workflow and asset management used to enhance the marketing fulfillment process and capabilities. The emphasis of MarcomCentral is on asset management, asset customization by field employees or partners, workflow automation, and asset distribution to consumers/vendors. The solution enables clients to order, purchase, customize and distribute marketing collateral and content. It also enables clients to produce customized marketing assets within almost any type of media. A unique capability for dynamic content is MarcomCentral's personalized images.
• Product road map: PTI has developed a new administrative user interface for MarcomCentral that looks like the Windows 8 tile-based structure. It has developed integrations with salesforce.com and ExactTarget. Plans for 2013 include a focus on user interface enhancements and improved reporting, along with continued integration with partners for budgeting/financial management and marketing automation, and expansion of workflows for fulfillment and approval cycles.
• Marketing visibility: PTI is attempting to build greater awareness with marketing leaders, prospects and potential partners by hosting a Marketing Operations Executive Summit in March 2013. The vendor plans to host more of these events during 2013 and beyond.
• Reason for solution selection: References stated that the main reason they selected PTI was because the solution met their MRM requirements.

Cautions

• Financial management and workflow: Although the MarcomCentral solution has some capabilities for budgeting for content and collateral, it does not provide a robust financial management and planning solution for the entire marketing organization and mix. The workflow is tied primarily to the customization and fulfillment of marketing content and has not been prepackaged for creative reviews. It provides more of a pull-down list selection for work. It is simple to use, but not as flexible as the visual drag-and-drop workflow that other MRM vendors provide. PTI is currently working on partnerships in these areas.
• Global sales and support: Although PTI has a sales presence in Europe, it predominantly sells into the North American market, with few nonsalespeople located outside the U.S. market. Global prospects should carefully assess the capabilities of the vendor to support multiple regions. Local support in regions outside the U.S. are not well-established. PTI provides additional local European support via its reseller partners.
• Customization: Some references reported 50% or greater customization requirements. PTI reports that only a few new clients in 2012 required additional customization.
• Potential acquisition target: MarcomCentral provides some capabilities that can augment other marketing and MRM solutions, and enable sales. As consolidation in the MRM market continues and MRM requirements for marketing fulfillment solutions increase, PTI's value proposition in marketing fulfillment could make it attractive for acquisition. Some of the leading MRM vendors in this Magic Quadrant lack robust capabilities in the area of marketing fulfillment.

Saepio

Saepio, a U.S.-based company, is a Niche Player focused mainly on marketing asset management and fulfillment, predominantly in North America. North American prospects interested in managing marketing assets and executing dynamic content across multiple channels and media should consider Saepio.

Strengths

• New customers and organizational focus: Saepio added 12 new customers in 2012. Gartner estimates Saepio's MRM revenue is between $8 million and $10 million. Although Saepio's revenue has declined from 2011 and is a bit close to the minimum threshold for inclusion in the Magic Quadrant, we believe that it is making the necessary changes to refocus the company on growth. It reported an increase of 24% year over year in bookings. First, it has transformed its legacy offerings to its MarketPort platform, increasing its average deal size and providing opportunities to upsell to existing customers. Saepio also made significant organizational changes in 2012 with a new executive team, including CFO and COO, vice president (VP) of sales, CTO, and chief client officer. It also doubled the size of its sales team to scale MarketPort sales. Its new CFO implemented a formal strategic planning and budgeting initiative, secured a line of credit with a new provider, and simplified its capital structure. The vendor also developed a stronger focus on client retention, fielding a client survey focused on satisfaction and needs, and creating its first client advisory board.
• Local market enablement vision: The hallmark of Saepio's software is its focus on sales enablement and brand management in local markets. The vendor's distributed marketing solution provides planning, budgeting, creative production management, asset management and reporting capabilities focused on making assets available for use in local markets. The MarketPort platform provides data integration capabilities, an automation framework, analytics, and channel/media integrations to digital ads, social media, mobile, radio, email, print and video. Functionality includes a campaign configuration suite (access control, template creation, DAM, workflow configuration, list management and fulfillment configuration), a dynamic content creation engine (asset repository, compilation, business rules and workflow) and capabilities to support local marketing (personalization, localization, purchase/procurement, fulfillment, sharing and scheduling).
• Product enhancements: Saepio continued to develop its MarketPort platform in 2012, and to innovate new capabilities for distributed and local marketing, with a focus on personalization, real-time dynamic publishing and multichannel/multimedia support. A major focus was on improving capabilities to address client needs for analytics by improving its analytics, reporting and dashboard capabilities. Future road map plans will focus on usability of the storefront, design enhancements to the customer experience, and data triggers to drive personalization and deliver dynamically generated content in the channel.
• Deployment models: Saepio offers on-premises, hosted and multitenant SaaS options.
• Reasons for vendor selection: References stated they selected Saepio for its MRM expertise, quality of response to RFPs, presentation of capabilities and/or pricing (total cost of ownership).

Cautions

• Declining revenue growth: Saepio reports about a 10% decline in revenue from 2011 to 2012. With its new management structure, focus on improved financial controls, and doubled sales staff for and migration to the MarketPort platform, the vendor should be able to turn this around in 2013 and return to growth.
• Financial management: Saepio has some basic financial management capabilities, but they are not as robust or complex as the leading MRM vendors in the market. This was not an area of strong R&D focus in 2012 and we do not expect it will be in 2013. Clients should carefully evaluate whether these capabilities meet their requirements.
• Geographical coverage and increased competition: Although Saepio, based in the U.S., supports the international divisions of its clients, most clients are headquartered in North America. Clients outside North America should assess resources for implementation, as well as those for ongoing support. Each customer has a dedicated account manager and access to a phone-based customer support center; standard support hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central time, Monday through Friday. There is 24/7, multilingual phone support available for an additional fee. Saepio will face increased competition from vendors such as BrandMaker, Code Worldwide, Elateral, PTI Marketing Technologies and North Plains-Vyre, as well as from specialty players in local marketing enablement, such as Balihoo.
• Potential acquisition target: Saepio provides some interesting capabilities that can augment other marketing and MRM solutions, and enable sales. As consolidation in the MRM market increases, Saepio's specialty and innovative focus could make it an attractive vendor for acquisition. Gartner believes that marketing fulfillment vendors will be part of the next wave of MRM consolidation during the next two years as IMM and DAM vendors seek to provide more-integrated offerings.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, Saepio stated that the main reasons they did so were because the solution lacked robust MRM functionality and/or did not meet their requirements.

SAP

SAP is a Leader for its broad and robust set of MRM capabilities and improved execution. SAP customers and prospects looking for MRM capabilities should consider SAP CRM.

Strengths

• Market momentum: SAP Marketing revenue has grown 134% year to date. Gartner estimates that approximately 60% of SAP CRM sales include marketing licenses, with MRM capabilities utilized by the majority of marketing clients. SAP has had more than seven recent marketing-application-driven wins from companies that were not SAP Business Suite clients. Momentum in marketing has increased the marketing solution's visibility and investment resources. Gartner believes that marketing could be the No. 1 CRM application sold by SAP in 2013.
• MRM R&D: SAP Marketing investments for MRM in 2012 focused on the main areas of collaboration, DAM and marketing fulfillment (via an OpenText partnership), and marketing mix optimization. In 2012, SAP leveraged its acquired social collaboration capabilities (in the SAP Jam offering) from SuccessFactors to embed collaboration capabilities in its marketing solutions with relevant contextual use cases across all of MRM, such as in the areas of planning, financial management, performance management and creative production management. SAP is one of the first MRM vendors to add social collaboration capabilities effectively in an MRM solution. The vendor upgraded its DAM solution to the latest version of OpenText Media Management 7.1, which improved its media manager and media management portal and also includes integration to CRM. New capabilities within SAP Document Presentment support an end-to-end process for Web-to-print capabilities, including document composition and document generation and delivery. SAP now provides advanced marketing analytics and optimization capabilities through a partnership with MarketShare to continue to improve its dashboards and analytical and optimization capabilities. It also released SAP 360 Customer for marketers, which provides accelerated marketing management capabilities, real-time performance insights and social collaboration for MRM.
• Vision for media and agency management: SAP's Marketing vision is quite broad and encompasses the ecosystem of the media-buying marketplace, marketing data providers, advertising technologies and agency/consulting companies. Future innovations in this area will be to provide marketing data consolidation and analytics capabilities for optimized decision making for marketers. As a result of the acquisition of Ariba in 2012, SAP is in a position to extend MRM business processes to leverage Ariba's business network for marketing departments. The vision will focus on better facilitation of media procurement and agency management, making SAP one of the first MRM vendors to build these types of next-generation MRM capabilities.
• Customer focus and thought leadership: SAP continues to transform its MRM vision and products by listening to its customers and actively leveraging its CMO Community, a professional community of CMOs, to provide feedback on product enhancements, as well as to craft its vision based on CMO requirements. This community has over 100 members and has annual, face-to-face meetings. SAP also has a Marketing Customer Advisory Council to provide feedback and input into the marketing solution. SAP also has a book ("The Customer Experience Edge" by Reza Soudagar, Vinay Iyer and Dr. Volker G. Hildebrand) and other publications that promote its thought leadership in marketing and to engage CMOs.
• Reasons for vendor selection: References stated the main reasons for selecting SAP were due to positive prior experience with the vendor and that SAP was viewed as a strategic partner.

Cautions

• On demand: SAP does not have a multitenant SaaS option for its broad set of MRM functionality. SAP CRM for marketing can be deployed on-premises or as a hosted, single-tenant solution. However, SAP provides collaboration capabilities on-demand via SAP Jam and offers some MRM functionality in its SAP Business ByDesign solution. Clients seeking an on-demand MRM solution with a broad set of functionality should consider alternatives.
• Workflow and financial management: Business rules and workflow remain less flexible than those of the more mainstream MRM vendors. However, SAP NetWeaver BPM provides a flexible, drag-and-drop workflow tool that can be used by marketers, but these tools are not yet integrated with SAP CRM. Some clients cite this area as one difficulty with the SAP MRM application. References for this Magic Quadrant were slightly dissatisfied with the financial management and budgeting capabilities, providing an average rating of 3 out of 7. However, SAP has invested and significantly improved capabilities in this area as of CRM 7.0 EhP1.
• Partner risk: SAP relies on OpenText integration for DAM and marketing fulfillment capabilities. There is always the risk that OpenText could be acquired by a competitor, which would put the partnership at risk, as well as customers that are using the functionality. Gartner has witnessed that clients prefer to have a vendor fully own its MRM functionality, rather than to rely on partnerships. However, SAP's partnership with OpenText is strong, with technical integration and reseller agreements not only for the DAM scenario, but also across other SAP enterprise solution scenarios.
• Market perception: Some prospects that are not SAP clients will not consider SAP because they view large vendors such as SAP as too difficult to engage for an MRM solution. Some believe that if they are not considering other areas of CRM and ERP, then it does not make sense to pursue SAP as an option for MRM, and will not put SAP on their shortlists for MRM. Although SAP has won some net new clients with SAP Marketing, it will need to change this perception in the market to grow its non-SAP client revenue faster.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References provided by other vendors for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, SAP stated that they did so because there was a lack of robust MRM functionality, the solution did not meet their requirements and/or there had been a negative prior experience with the vendor.

SAS

SAS is a Leader in MRM for its broad and robust set of MRM capabilities across the five competencies and for its vision for next-generation MRM capabilities. Clients looking for a global MRM solution should consider SAS.

Strengths

• Viability and growth: SAS is a large privately owned company with approximately $2.725 billion in revenue in 2011. SAS has added more than 50 new MRM customers in 2012 and around 400 customers in total using MRM solutions. Gartner projects that MRM revenue grew between 20% and 25% from 2011 to 2012 and estimates SAS had over $30 million in MRM revenue in 2012.
• Robust MRM solution: The Marketing Operations Management solution from SAS provides a strong set of capabilities in planning, financial management, creative production management, marketing asset management, marketing performance management and marketing mix optimization. SAS is one of the few MRM vendors that provides advanced capabilities for performance management and marketing mix optimization. MRM modules include a marketing workbench (integrated workflow), a strategic planner, a knowledge manager, a digital asset manager, dashboards, reports, a Website builder, Artwork Producer, a resource planner, regulatory claims management, approvals, a calendar, an offer manager, time sheets, a promotion planner, partner channel management and integration (e.g., Web services). The vendor supports integration with other key SAS solutions in areas such as retail/merchandising, campaign management, workforce management, risk management, etc.
• R&D investment: Unlike many other SAS solutions, which have annual major release cycles, there are two to three releases per year of Marketing Operations Management, to accelerate its advancements in that area. Plans for 2013 include building on overall performance improvements, continued integrations with campaign management and other SAS solutions, calendar enhancements, resource management/workbench integrations, DAM social star ratings for ratings and reviews of assets, Artwork Producer integration with digital marketing, improved usability, launching a new mobile MRM application, improving reporting leveraging visual analytics, a tablet-based visual analytics for mobile reports, updated marketing analytics, a new public API for integrations, bottom-up planning, enhanced claims management, and offer management enhancements.
• MRM vision: SAS demonstrates a deep understanding of CMO and marketing challenges, and is able to translate these into processes and enabling technologies with a strong focus on how MRM provides the backbone or foundation for IMM. SAS's product strategy includes many next-generation MRM capabilities. Marketing performance management and marketing optimization remain strong parts of SAS's MRM strategy. New areas of focus include industry innovations, such as promotional and space/display planning for retail customers, resource planning, daily time sheets and approvals, and regulatory claims management for labeling (e.g., food and beverages). Capabilities beyond 2012 put emphasis on human capital management of marketing resources, asset effectiveness ratings, flexible planning periods and continued internationalization of the solution.
• Deployment options: SAS Marketing Operations Management is primarily deployed via SaaS, but is also available on-premises and hosted in a single-tenant model. SAS Marketing Mix Advisor is only available via hosted delivery.

Cautions

• Marketing fulfillment: Although SAS has some marketing fulfillment capabilities, the pace of change for requirements in this area is quite rapid as marketing organizations seek to reuse their assets and content across a diverse set of channels, media and devices. Most of the broad MRM vendors, including SAS, are falling behind in this area, which is currently being dominated by vendors such as Balihoo, Elateral, PTI Marketing Technologies, Saepio and Thunderhead.com. While SAS has a long-standing partnership with Saepio, it will need to invest further in building out capabilities from its Marketing Operations Management solution or acquire another vendor in this space to close the gaps.
• Product integration: The complete set of MRM capabilities from SAS currently sits across three main solutions: Marketing Operations Management (Assetlink), Marketing Automation (Campaign Management) and Marketing Mix Advisor. SAS has provided these capabilities in incremental steps (such as new Web services and application-level integration). From a technical perspective, a fully integrated solution will happen with the move to the SAS 9.4 platform in 2013.
• MRM execution: Although SAS has hired many new MRM experts, based on prospect feedback from Gartner clients, there appears to be some confusion in the market from a business perspective regarding its acquired MRM capabilities from Assetlink, with salespeople unable to always adequately demonstrate the solution's true capabilities. Assetlink did not have strong brand recognition prior to the acquisition; therefore, SAS will have to better train its sales force in the field on its MRM capabilities and provide a specialized focus on MRM in its key markets. Gartner has noted that SAS has been missing in some MRM deals where it would have been an ideal candidate for the shortlist. Gartner recommends that prospective buyers ensure that an MRM specialist from SAS is involved in their sales processes to ensure that market dynamics and other MRM factors are fully considered by the vendor. Gartner has also received some complaints from a few clients about the SaaS platform in relation to application stability, reliability and support. SAS has addressed this by upgrading nearly all of its SaaS customers' infrastructures, and with improvements in its 2012 product releases. Gartner expects this to be less of an issue with new clients moving forward.
• Customer commits: SAS had to honor customer commitments post-Assetlink acquisition that required more custom work than originally planned for clients. The amount of work led to a decrease in functional advancements in the solution and in R&D investment, compared to what was actually planned. SAS has worked through most of these customer commits and is moving customers to more of an enterprise software solution that requires fewer future customizations.
• Reasons cited for not selecting the solution: References for the MRM Magic Quadrant that considered, but did not select, SAS stated that they did so because of pricing or total cost of ownership, the solution did not meet their MRM requirements and/or SAS did not demonstrate an understanding of marketing business requirements.

Teradata

Teradata is a Leader for its broad and deep solution, MRM experience, client maturity, client value focus and continued market traction. Companies should consider Teradata for the breadth and depth of its MRM solution, and its experience in this market.

Strengths

• Viability and growth: Teradata is a large global company with $1.925 billion in revenue through the third quarter of 2012. Overall revenue was up 14% from 2011. Teradata continued its momentum in MRM during 2012, adding more than 30 new medium to large enterprise MRM customers. Gartner estimates MRM-related revenue for 2012 to be between $60 million and $70 million.
• Broad and deep solution with mature implementations: The Teradata solution provides a broad set of MRM functionality, with capabilities in each of the five competency areas, including deep functionality in planning, budgeting and creative production management. The vendor offers two products: Aprimo Marketing Studio On Demand (a multitenant SaaS architecture) and Aprimo Marketing Studio (a single-tenant architecture that can be hosted by Teradata, Teradata's partners, or on-premises by the customer or in some hybrid combination). Teradata continues to have some of the most advanced MRM clients, which pushes Aprimo product innovation forward.
• Continued investment and innovation: There are five key areas of investment for the MRM solution in 2013: spend/financial management, global marketing calendar, social collaboration platform, marketing asset management and user experience (annotations). New features and enhancements to spend management will be focused on overviews or planning summaries, a greater ability to adjust spend quickly to meet business needs or based on campaign results, the ability to set triggers and alerts for notifications, and insight on spending through visualization and click-through analysis. Enhancements to the global marketing calendar include an enhanced user interface, an expanded view of the data with simpler navigation, the ability to export items to other calendar tools (e.g., Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar) and the ability to import data from other sources. The social collaboration platform will provide a tool for real-time contextual communications inside the application, the ability to share internal and agency conversations, and a platform to enable auditing of compliance-driven processes. Marketing asset management center enhancements include a new visual interface to quickly filter, view and access assets; expanded search capabilities; user-generated tagging to further categorize assets; and enhanced support for tablets and other devices. Reviewer experience enhancements include side-by-side annotations, improved copy/search features to make similar changes within a document and easier access to reference documents. Other focus areas include advanced print and digital fulfillment, integrated fulfillment and campaign execution, and advanced analytical insights integrated with marketing mix optimization. Initial versions of the social collaboration platform and marketing asset management enhancements and enhanced user experience are currently available in the on-demand solution. Many of the other capabilities will be made available in Aprimo Marketing Studio with the next major release in mid-2013. Some of these capabilities will likely be released in 2014.
• Consulting and supporting services: Teradata has long put emphasis on consulting and ongoing business value, not just software, through its strong consulting service organization, which has deep experience in MRM. The vendor continues to expand on this vision. The Teradata MRM service portfolio includes solutions to help clients get ready (solution definition workshop, marketing maturity assessment, benchmarks and scorecards), get set (getting started with training, installation and cloud services), go (Empower, Quickstart, tailored implementations, partner-led tailored implementations and customer services), and go beyond (extended services, managed services and reporting insight). Aprimo University helps clients at each phase with assessments and evaluations (get ready), training and enablement (get set), implementation and support (go) and value attainment (go beyond). It provides services for marketing ROI calculators, marketing maturity assessments and marketing improvement opportunity assessments. These can be used with existing clients, but also as part of a consultative selling process to demonstrate the value of the Aprimo solution. Teradata has key partnerships for these services, including strategic partners (Accenture, Capgemini, Wipro and Cognizant) and implementation partners (Numeric Analytics, EMMcare and Crystalloids). It has technology partnerships with North Plains, Microsoft and Dell.
• Deployment options: Teradata offers on-premises, hosted and SaaS options. Aprimo Marketing Studio may be deployed as an on-premises, hosted or hybrid solution. Aprimo Marketing Studio On Demand is multitenant.

Cautions

• Marketing asset management and fulfillment: Teradata has put less emphasis in R&D for the marketing fulfillment part of its solution, compared with other areas of MRM. Marketing fulfillment is increasingly becoming a requirement for companies interested in marketing asset management and managing assets from idea to fulfillment. Clients have also requested a more robust DAM solution than the one Teradata currently provides. Teradata states that this is in the road map for 2014. Currently, the vendor has a partnership with North Plains to improve its DAM capabilities. The acquisition of Vyre by North Plains should also bring Teradata additional marketing fulfillment capabilities. Teradata will need to invest more in this area during the next few years, or acquire one of the technology providers in this space. Its road map calls for enhancements in marketing asset management and fulfillment.
• Increased competition: Teradata has been a long-term Leader in the MRM Magic Quadrant; however, as the market matures, it will find itself being increasingly challenged to maintain a commanding lead. Consolidation is creating some larger and more-global players in the MRM market. Teradata is facing increasing competition from Infor, SAS and SAP as the market matures and these vendors expand their MRM capabilities.
• Initial sales execution: There have been a few noted incidents by Gartner clients in which the vendor did not do a good job of demonstrating particular capabilities (e.g., MRM) or was perceived as being overconfident during the initial meeting. A few of these have resulted in Teradata not being invited back for a second opportunity, even though it would have been a good shortlist candidate based on the clients' requirements. Once at an account for a second visit, the vendor appears to do well.
• Pricing and statement of work (SOW): Some clients and prospects have complained about pricing being high or the lack of transparency with pricing and in the negotiation process. The SOWs for services have been particularly troublesome from some clients' perspectives, mainly those that require ongoing customizations for the solution in terms of workflow and reporting. These may increase the long-term total cost of ownership for these clients, if their customized features are not included in future versions of the product. To lower customization costs for workflow, clients and prospects should implement the visual drag-and-drop workflow tool, which provides greater flexibility for the client to make changes without relying on Teradata. Some of the initial concerns around first sales visits often reappear during the negotiation process, which can frustrate prospects. Pricing (total cost of ownership) was one of the main reasons given by references for the MRM Magic Quadrant for considering, but not selecting, Teradata.
• Midmarket: Teradata will not be strategically targeting the midmarket, but will respond opportunistically to midmarket opportunities if they are deemed a good fit or if a SaaS deployment model is appropriate. The vendor will not respond to RFPs in this area if it does not deem its solution to be a good fit with the client.

Vendors Added or Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor appearing in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or a change of focus by a vendor.

Added

• BrandSystems

Dropped

• CDC Software (Pivotal) did not meet the minimum criteria for inclusion in this MRM Magic Quadrant update.
• Kodak did not meet the minimum criteria for inclusion in this MRM Magic Quadrant update.

To be included in the 2013 update of the MRM Magic Quadrant, a vendor must demonstrate:

Market Traction and Momentum:

• Vendor has at least 30 production customers for MRM functionality, each with at least an average of 25 weekly users.
• Vendor has at least 15 new customers for MRM in the past four quarters.
• Vendor has generated at least $10 million in revenue for MRM in the past four quarters.
• Vendor supports existing clients across three or more countries in two or more major geographies (North America, Europe, the Asia/Pacific region, South America, Central America and the Middle East/Africa).
• Vendor has appeared on Gartner client lists at least once per quarter in each of the past four quarters.

MRM Product Capabilities:

• Vendor provides a prepackaged software solution targeted to MRM buyers, and supports ongoing R&D development of its software.
• The solution must be able to be sold independently from other solutions (e.g., a client can purchase the solution separately, without having to purchase other business applications first).
• Software (as opposed to consulting services) must account for 50% or more of the solution.
• Vendor must support MRM functionality for at least four of the following five outlined components:
  • Planning and financial management
  • Creative production management
  • Marketing asset/knowledge management
  • Marketing fulfillment
  • MRM analytics and optimization
• At least one of these components must be either for budgeting and financial management, or workflow for creative production management (e.g., for internal project management and reviews/approvals).

Short-Term Viability:

• Vendor has sufficient professional services to fulfill current and future customer demand during the next 12 months.
• Vendor has at least enough cash to fund a year of operations at its current burn rate.

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

Product/Service: This criterion remains one of the key differentiators in vendor capabilities, and it is important for vendor selection among leading companies looking for a competitive advantage. Therefore, this capability has the highest weighting, compared with other criteria. Subcriteria include specific functionality and solution capabilities for planning and financial management (20%); creative production management (25%); marketing asset and content management (10%); marketing fulfillment (20%); measurement, reporting, dashboards, analysis and optimization (15%); and architecture (10%) — for example, openness, flexibility, usability and workflow.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): In a market where there are many small vendors, viability is an important criterion, and it gets a High weighting. Subcriteria include overall financials (50%), MRM-related revenue (40%) and partner strategy (10%).

Sales Execution/Pricing: This refers to the ability of the vendor to provide global sales and distribution coverage of its MRM solution directly and/or through partnerships. Vendors must have experience selling MRM to the appropriate buying center (marketing and IT), and offer consistent and transparent pricing models and structures. Pricing structures that support large enterprises and SMBs, and both in-house and SaaS-based deployments, are also important. Although less important than product capability or the overall viability of the vendor, other criteria, such as the flexibility of deployment models (on-premises, hosted and on demand) and pricing, are important client considerations. Subcriteria include flexibility in deployment models (75%) and pricing models (25%). This criterion receives a Standard weighting.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: This is the assessment of the desire, expertise and organizational flexibility needed to address evolving customer requirements and articulate that insight back to the market, as well as create future MRM products in line with this change. The key evaluation criteria are the responsiveness of the vendor to the market, as well as of the market to a vendor and its solution, and the customer's experience working with that solution in its geography and industry. These criteria are given the third highest weighting, along with the customer experience.

Marketing Execution: This is the ability of the vendor to consistently generate market demand and awareness of its MRM solution through marketing programs and press visibility. The clarity, quality and creativity that go into this are just as important as the revenue assigned to generate new leads and reinforce/increase brand awareness. This evaluates the vendor's marketing strategy and execution to build recognition for the MRM solution in ways that gain traction for the MRM solution across geographies and industries. This criterion receives a Standard weighting.

Customer Experience: Assessment of this aspect evaluates the vendor's commitment to ensuring that each customer has ongoing success with its MRM deployment. Aspects considered include implementation services and partners, global technical support (direct and via partners), account management, user groups/panels, and customer communities. Each vendor must provide a sufficient number of recent references to prove the ongoing viability and acceptance of its product in the marketplace. This evaluation criterion takes into account customer ratings, reviews and evaluations of the vendor, its MRM solution (functionality, architecture, usability), implementation services, account management and ongoing customer support. This criterion receives the third highest rating, along with market responsiveness and track record.

Operations: This criterion explores each vendor's ability to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, such as skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles, which enables the vendor to operate effectively and efficiently. This includes management experience and track record, and the depth of staff experience, specifically in the MRM market. The vendor must have sufficient professional services (in-house or through third-party business consultants and system integrators) to meet evolving customer requirements. Implementation and support are also relevant considerations during vendor evaluation, although they are less important than product capability and viability. This criterion receives the same weighting as sales execution/pricing (Standard). Subcriteria include customer service and support (50%), and professional services (50%).

Source: Gartner (February 2013)

Completeness of Vision

Market Understanding: The vendor's understanding of the MRM market and its specific value proposition to marketing personnel are critical when selecting a vendor with a vision that meets your needs. Therefore, this criterion receives one of the highest weightings.

Marketing Strategy: The vendor's marketing strategy is critical to its ability to gain broader recognition for its MRM solutions. We assess the strategy's consistency, clarity and degree of associated differentiation in regard to the positioning of MRM internally and externally to the company, and in line with the company's overall vision and brand values. This criterion receives a Standard weighting.

Sales Strategy: The company's sales strategy is critical to market penetration and global expansion. We assess the go-to-market approach for selling the MRM product and services, both directly and through partnership networks globally. A diverse range of aspects, spanning strategic account management to industry expertise/targeting, is assessed. This criterion receives a Standard weighting.

Offering (Product) Strategy: Innovation and vision across the breadth and depth of product capabilities are critical to continue to meet the needs of a maturing market in the five competency areas of MRM. Therefore, this criterion also receives the highest weighting. Subcriteria include specific functionality and solution capabilities for planning and financial management (25%); creative production management (15%); marketing asset and content management (5%); marketing fulfillment (20%); measurement, reporting, dashboards, analysis and optimization (25%); and architecture (10%) — for example, openness, flexibility, usability and workflow.

Business Model: The business model for how a vendor aligns marketing and sales strategies for particular industries and geographies to deliver on its MRM value proposition is an important component of its vision, although less so than market understanding and product capability. It includes an evaluation of how well the vendor mobilizes resources and leverages partners to go to market and successfully execute.

Vertical/Industry Strategy: Here, we evaluate the vendor's go-to-market strategy for industries, solution capabilities (product verticalization), industry templates and packaging, and plans for vertical industries. This criterion receives a Standard weighting.

Innovation: Here, we assess the vendor's innovation in new and emerging areas of MRM, such as knowledge management, social networking, mobile connectivity, marketing mix optimization, scenario planning/forecasting and order management. This criterion receives a High weighting.

Geographic Strategy: This criterion assesses the vendor's global understanding of MRM requirements and its strategy and plans for geographical expansion, including marketing, sales, implementation and customer support. This criterion receives a Standard weighting.

Source: Gartner (February 2013)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders

Leaders in the MRM market demonstrate exemplary performance. They deliver breadth and depth of integrated MRM functionality on large, enterprisewide and global implementations that extend MRM across the marketing organization. Leaders successfully articulate business propositions that resonate with buyers.

Challengers

Challengers have entered the MRM market primarily to provide offerings that complement their established business applications. In doing so, they expect to leverage their large installed bases. They typically offer breadth of functionality, although often at the expense of depth and innovation. They provide value in terms of ease of integration with their enterprise applications, but have a limited understanding of market trends and marketing buyers. Challengers are unable to consistently and effectively articulate their visions, or they have not mobilized their resources to excel in the market segment.

Visionaries

Visionaries have a strong vision for applying technology to MRM-related issues, but have not yet mobilized resources or developed a robust business model for global expansion on a large scale. A Visionary vendor is a market thought leader and an innovator across most of the five competency areas of MRM. Visionaries will need to grow more to achieve sufficient scale in the MRM market, and to provide more consistent execution, to become Leaders.

Niche Players

Niche Players perform well in a small segment of the MRM market. They have a limited ability to innovate or outperform other vendors. They are focused on a specific geography or industry, or they focus primarily on a portion of the MRM competencies and functionality. Niche Players have limited implementations and support services for MRM, and may not have achieved the necessary scale to solidify their market positions.

MRM continues to mature, with expanding business requirements across the five MRM competencies, requests for next-generation functionality and more global implementations. MRM investments continued to grow in 2012, particularly in North America. We are beginning to see more interest in the Asia/Pacific region and Latin America. Europe has rebounded a bit from 2011, but at a slower pace of growth than other areas. Most vendors continued to grow their revenue. A few were flat in terms of growth, and a few had slightly declining revenue. Two vendors failed to meet the inclusion criteria, and one new vendor was added this year. Based on the vendors that Gartner tracks, we estimate there are more than 3,950 MRM implementations in midsize and large companies worldwide. In 2012, there were more than 625 new MRM implementations. Gartner sees MRM expanding within organizations in three ways: (1) global expansion, (2) an increase in the number of users within a region and (3) broadening MRM capabilities across the five areas of MRM competency. Gartner also sees MRM moving more firmly into the midmarket, with more midmarket organizations adopting MRM, particularly the SaaS and hosted deployment options.

Buyers should carefully evaluate their deployment options (on-premises, hosted and on-demand), because options are expanding, thus impacting the value propositions of different product lines. We expect to continue to see new entrants in the MRM market, but expect the pace of consolidation to increase during the next two years. Vendors, particularly those with less than $15 million in revenue, may not survive and are increasingly likely to be acquired by larger players. We expect about half of these smaller players to be acquired or go out of business during the next three years.

There are a number of changes in this particular MRM Magic Quadrant in terms of vendor positions. These positions cannot be compared with last year's positions. The changes are due to the following:

• Two vendors (CDC Software [Pivotal] and Kodak) were dropped, resetting the parameters for all vendors on this Magic Quadrant.
• One new vendor — BrandSystems — was added, changing the shape of the market.
• As the MRM market matures, emphasis for Completeness of Vision is placed on the breadth of an integrated MRM solution. Vendors with a specialty focus are now more likely to appear as Niche Players in the market for their focus on fewer MRM competencies, whereas they might have been Visionaries in that area in the past. With market consolidation, more emphasis is being placed on geographical strategy.
• Execution varied greatly, with some vendors showing decreasing or flat revenue and signs of attrition, others continuing their steady growth, and some displaying strong growth and greatly improved business models. Consolidation has created larger and more global competition, with increased overall viability for those vendors acquired.

Market consolidation continues, with Microsoft acquiring MarketingPilot Software, Infor acquiring Orbis and North Plains acquiring Vyre in the fourth quarter of 2012. Gartner believes consolidation will continue in 2013. The third wave of MRM consolidation is likely to include acquisitions in the marketing fulfillment area of MRM in 2013 and 2014. Clients are evolving their sophistication and are more astute about their requirements. First-time buyers are looking across a broader set of MRM competencies and at the global impact of the initiatives, whereas MRM veterans are looking to expand functionality, as well as to expand globally, while consolidating prior purchases. We also see early buyers re-evaluating their choices as the market matures.

The market is becoming somewhat polarized, with megavendors like IBM, Infor, Microsoft, SAP, SAS and Teradata becoming major players, and DAM providers like North Plains entering the market. However, most of the other MRM vendors focused primarily on MRM have less than $15 million in total revenue. Therefore, buyers will have to make trade-offs between overall vendor viability and breadth and depth of functionality based on requirements and the relationships the vendor brings to clients' issues.

We are still seeing a few new entrants such as AtTask, which focuses on the planning and project management aspects of MRM. AtTask has a unique focus on managing human resources and project planning. New entrants with a specialty focus such as this in new areas could do well in the market, particularly if they are complementary to other MRM solutions. Most specialty vendors (such as Elateral, PTI Marketing Technologies and Saepio) have focused on marketing fulfillment. New vendors in the planning, financial management and project management space could provide opportunities for mergers between them and the marketing fulfillment vendors.

Gartner expects consolidation of the MRM market to continue during the next two years. Consolidation is driven predominantly by two factors: (1) the need to expand MRM capabilities to meet client requirements, and (2) the growing interest and investment in MRM among larger application vendors. New entrants are still expected in the MRM market, but the window of opportunity is closing for small vendor entrants as consolidation increases among larger players. Large players that could enter this market include Adobe, EMC, HP and Xerox. Marketo and Neolane are other likely entrants that have some MRM functionality already, but don't sell a prepackaged MRM solution.

According to references, the most important drivers influencing vendor selection were that the MRM functionality met the organization's requirements (61%), the vendor had an understanding of marketing's business requirements (31%), the MRM expertise of the vendor (30%) and the vendor was viewed as a strategic partner (29%). Whether or not the vendor's solution meets the prospect's MRM requirements is the main driver of solution selection and disqualification. Clearly, prospects are seeking solutions based on their requirements, and not just the most robust MRM solution available. Of the vendor references surveyed for this Magic Quadrant, 29% were using a solution hosted by a third party, 26% used an on-demand/SaaS solution, 16% had deployed an on-premises solution and 16% were using a hybrid model across the three types. In terms of implementation (time to full production deployment), 58% stated it took six months or less, 24% said seven to 12 months, 8% said 13 to 18 months, and 3% said more than 24 months. Fifty-seven percent stated the implementation time was about what was expected, with 36% reporting it as longer than expected and 3% reporting it as shorter than expected. Eighty-three percent of references used their internal staff for implementation, 57% used professional services from the vendor, and 3% used one or more external system integrators. Forty-two percent stated that the solution required both configuration and customization, 17% said configuration only (no custom writing of code) and 20% said customization (writing of code) only. Twenty-one percent reported using the solution out of the box with no configuration or customization. The range of customization varied greatly, from less than 10% to 100%. Seventy-one percent reported that they achieved their expected business results, and 23% stated that their results were better than expected, with only 6% stating they were worse than expected.

To help further evaluate MRM vendors based on your requirements, see "Toolkit: How to Create a Marketing Resource Management Application RFP" (Note: This document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions).