What is the FrontRunners quadrant?

The FrontRunners quadrant, powered by Gartner Methodology, provides a data-driven assessment of products in a particular software category to determine which ones offer the best capability and value for small businesses. It is designed to assist small business leaders in making a software purchase.

FrontRunners plots a given market’s top 20-30 products in a quadrant format. The quadrant placement displays the Capability and Value of a product relative to their peers in the market. Each product is positioned in a designated quadrant based on their overall score.

Below is the graphic from the “FrontRunners for Customer Relationship Management.

It’s nice to be recognized by Gartner as one of the top solutions for small businesses said Larry Caretsky of Commence, but we would like to see the evaluation criteria broadened to more closely represent the value add that companies like Commence provide to its customers.  This graphical representation is closely matched to basic customer reviews such as; their satisfaction with the product, how they view the product relative to its price, and would they recommend it to others.  This is too superficial. Several of the companies listed offer their product for free for up to ten users.  They do not offer the level of functionality that Commence CRM does nor do they offer any value added services to ensure that the product gets properly implemented and utilized. Despite this they are ranked higher than Commence CRM – because they have more reviews.  This doesn’t really help a small business make the best decision for their business.