What It Means to Be a Leader in the Forrester Wave from a Former Forrester Analyst

We’re proud to share that PROS has been recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Configure, Price, Quote Platforms, Q2 2023. But what does that really mean? As a former Forrester Analyst who has written several Forrester Wave evaluations myself, I’m going to aim to answer that question here.

Firms like Forrester, Gartner, and IDC provide a number of services to their markets, but none of them are as visible or utilized as their evaluative research. With the Forrester Wave, Gartner Magic Quadrant, and IDC MarketScape, these firms aim to provide deep analysis, thoughtful commentary, and an informed point of view that helps businesses shortlist and ultimately select the best technology vendors for their needs.

For each of these firms, vendors must complete exhaustive questionnaires, conduct product and strategy briefings, demo the product’s capabilities across a wide range of use cases, and provide real-world customer references. It is a thorough process that can last for up to 6 months! So to be named a Leader is no small feat.

Unpacking the Analysis

In the recently published Wave, Forrester looked at 14 of the most significant providers of CPQ platforms in the market and created a scoring framework across 16 current offering, 6 strategy, and 2 market presence criteria. Each criterion is measured on a scale of 0-5. As expected, the analysis looks at the key areas of configure, price, and quote, but it also goes beyond that; it includes criteria on AI, rebate management, self-service purchasing, ease of use, and more. And the strategy focuses on key areas like innovation, roadmap, and partner ecosystem, while highlighting areas like pricing transparency and flexibility to meet emerging use cases.

Across the 22 current offering and strategy criteria, PROS is proud to have received the highest scores possible in 13 criteria. This resulted in PROS being named a Leader and having the second highest current offering score of evaluated vendors. Per the report, “…PROS can handle large and complex configurations and has a proven ability to deliver rich omnichannel capabilities.” What’s more, Forrester called innovations around PROS Gen IV AI “unmatched.” While many sales solutions focus on driving new revenue, PROS was recognized as a solid fit for companies in price-volatile or highly competitive markets looking to optimize profit and revenue across omnichannel sales.”

A recent commissioned Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study that showed a 400% return on investment and an initial payback period of only 9 months.

The PROS Point of View

CPQ is a quickly growing market and features some familiar names among the competitive offerings. PROS is named a CPQ leader by both Forrester and Gartner. This means that businesses can trust a vendor that will not lock them into a particular technology stack or force their hand with other technology investment decisions. PROS Smart CPQ can work in any digital selling technology stack (e.g., CRMs, ERPs, eCommerce platforms, and more) while providing the scale, trust, and intelligence that goes beyond the competition. We believe as digital selling continues to mature, businesses will benefit from our best-of-breed solutions that meet their elevated customer experience and engagement needs.

We also know that businesses who license SaaS solutions don’t just make selections based on what they can get today. They make strategic bets—ideally, partnerships—with their software vendors. PROS is unique in this regard. Among the Leaders, We believe PROS is the only vendor that will not get distracted by priorities from other areas like CRM, ERP, and more. PROS is singularly focused on pricing and quoting solutions to help businesses drive profitable growth. Every dollar of our R&D spend goes directly into these products.

How You Can Make the Most of The Forrester Wave and Other Analyst Reports

The Forrester Wave and other evaluative reports are published with some frequency and it’s easy to not make it beyond the graphic. We’ve made The Forrester Wave, as well as the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CPQ and its companion Critical Capabilities report, available for free. While the graphic is compelling, spend some time looking at how each vendor fared against each of the evaluation criteria. Read the vendor profiles; these are rich with analyst insights and customer reference commentary. Lastly, you can even feel free to reach out to me directly to talk about the analyst perspective or how to better digest all of the findings from each of these reports.