Unit4 named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Operations Platforms for Service Businesses, Q3 2020

We’re excited to announce that Forrester have named us a Strong Performer in their latest Digital Operations Platforms for Service Businesses Report.

We’re particularly pleased with the analyst’s assessment in our vendor profile that “Unit4 is a good fit for medium-sized services organizations in professional services, public sector, and higher education.”

An evaluation of the capabilities of the 12 most significant providers in the market, the report evaluates performance based on 22 different criteria. Covering everything from product roadmap, strategic partnering, and AI strategy to operational planning, billing and revenue management, and financial planning.

The report states that Unit4’s solution offers “solid, tailored functionality across the full DOP suite, with particular strength in procurement.” Our customers were also kind enough to say some nice things about us when polled by the analyst, defining us by our manageable costs, ease of use, and their good relationships with us and our people. Thanks everyone, the feeling is mutual.

We’re pleased to have been named a “strong performer” in an extremely competitive marketplace. We’re confident that our subsequent rankings will take us from strength to strength as we realize the benefits of our continuing investment in our products, and we continue to acquire and satisfy new customers in all regions globally.

We believe the report certainly highlights where we’ll have further opportunities to display our capabilities and strengthen our offering. According to the report, legacy ERP systems are now so outdated for the needs of the modern, service-focused enterprise that they are actively harming business outcomes. Because of this, those vendors that can offer next-generation capabilities like improved automation, AI adoption, and integration will emerge as the clear leaders in the future.

In the Forrester Wave report, Forrester cites three clear characteristics that all modern digital operations platforms require:

1. Optimizing recommendations to resolve supply/demand imbalance.

In simple terms, this placing less of a decision making burden on the users of the platform. Greater data visibility lets the people making the decisions make them better, and faster. (And greater automation further reduces the burden). Since our products and philosophy are all about People Experience, this will always be a core part of our offering.

2. Simplify integration and productize leading practices.

A replacement of an inside-out focus and tightly-controlled proprietary technologies with open architectures that support novel approaches like containers and microservices. (Unit4’s product roadmap is heavily geared to creating just such an environment.)

3. Foster successful, long-term, strategic partnerships.

Forrester rightly states that choosing a platform of this type is a make-or-break decision for businesses. One that must be made with heavy CEO involvement, and in which cultural fit, partner ecosystems, and ability to evolve with your business’s needs are just as important as current features lists.

They’ve also highlighted quite clearly that the future will depend not just on the ability to support business today, but on the ongoing ability to facilitate transformation as digital technology becomes more and more core to continued business operations.

We’re glad to say that we’re already positioning ourselves as a transformation partner, and have committed to making next-generation automation and AI a core part of our product offering in the future. And to a more flexible and customizable platform focused on user and people experience.

We’d like to thank Forrester for giving us the opportunity to show what we’re capable of, and look forward to growing and achieving more in the months and years to come.