Technology Vendor Evaluation

Radar Report

A Radar built around how buyers actually decide

Three executives control the buying decision; the CTO, CIO, and CISO. The new Radar scores you against all three, in each of its four quadrants.

Tell your story to the three executives who control the buying decisions

The GigaOm Radar helps vendors understand what matters most to their buyers, refine product strategy and messaging, and demonstrate value in the language executives use to make purchasing decisions, whether that’s innovation, operational efficiency, or security and compliance.

Every provider is scored through three executive lenses: CTO, CIO, and CISO. That’s the whole framework. Every criterion maps to one of the three, so any score traces back to a specific executive’s priorities.

Where you land is separate. The four quadrants, Foundation Builders, Agile Optimizers, Enduring Innovators, and Disruptive Pioneers describe the kind of buying decision you fit, not who’s making it, so no quadrant belongs to one executive; all three can point to the same one for different reasons. The results are three board-ready stories your GTM team can use verbatim.

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Winning the executive buying committee

We evaluate you through the eyes of the three executives who sign off, so your value shows up framed for the buyers who actually decide.

Buyer	What’s changed	See how you benefit
CTOGreen Money	Innovation now scores as its own lens, weighted equally against efficiency and risk instead of sitting inside one blended score.	Point to a specific quadrant and an independent Velocity label as third-party evidence you’re ahead — not just your own roadmap slide.
CIOBrown Money	Efficiency and total cost of ownership are isolated into their own lens, so cost impact stops hiding inside a generic “ease of use” rating.	Bring a documented, scored TCO rationale into the business case instead of building one from scratch.
CISOGRCS	Risk and compliance get a dedicated, equally-weighted lens, backed by two structured fact-check rounds before anything is scored.	Walk into security review with a defensible, evidence-backed risk position, not a vendor self-attestation.

THE FOUR QUADRANTS

One Quadrant. Every Stakeholder

When your quadrant placement reflects true buyer fit, your team stops wasting cycles explaining away irrelevant criteria—and starts dropping defensible, third-party proof straight into sales enablement, marketing materials, and live deal conversations.

Foundation Builders

Stable, reliable, operationally focused solutions that prioritize predictability and continuity over innovation, for buyers who want proven, low-risk technology.

Agile Optimizers

Operationally focused solutions improving through incremental iteration, for buyers who want compounding gains on workflows that already work.

Enduring Innovators

Long-horizon strategic bets whose value compounds over years, not quarters, for buyers who accept a longer time-to-value for transformational outcomes.

Disruptive Pioneers

Leading-edge technology and fast-moving roadmaps that reshape what a category means, for buyers who accept elevated risk for capabilities not available elsewhere.

Persona-based outreach

Enterprise technology professionals greatly benefit when seller solutions are aligned with their business operations. Our collection of assets derived from the Radar report clearly identifies market positioning, differentiation, and provides executive-level awareness of a solution for operational fit.

Radar report derivatives

CxO Brief Lite

Derived from the Radar report, this is a standardized, executive-level document that combines market analysis with vendor-specific customization, providing quick executive education on technology topics while efficiently integrating vendor differentiators into the broader market context.

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Sales Enablement

Derived from the Radar report, GigaOm Sales Enablement equips sales teams with the knowledge and skills to effectively utilize GigaOm’s research in customer engagements. Learn to address competitor comparisons constructively, and translate research insights into sales conversations.

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GigaOm Radar Terms & Definitions

The vocabulary GigaOm uses to score every Radar — so you know exactly what a criterion, quadrant, or label means for your product.

Buyer framework

C-suite Buyer Personas

The three C-suite buyer personas — CTO, CIO, and CISO — GigaOm uses as the evaluative lens for every Radar. Every scoring criterion maps to one of these three roles; no other role (CFO, COO, procurement, etc.) enters the scoring framework.

Budget categories

Green Money GM

The CTO’s budget bucket. Asks whether a solution creates new capability, competitive advantage, or accelerates digital transformation. Weight: 30% of the base share.

Brown Money BM

The CIO’s budget bucket. Asks whether a solution reduces operational burden, improves reliability, or lowers total cost of ownership. Weight: 30% of the base share.

GRCS

The CISO’s budget bucket — Governance, Risk, Compliance, Security. Asks whether a solution reduces risk, meets compliance requirements, or improves security posture. Weight: 30% of the base share.

Emerging Technology

Forward-looking capability that spans all three buyer personas rather than belonging to one. It is scored in its own bucket, which informs your velocity label rather than your position score.

Note: The three budget buckets share 90% of the score evenly (30% each). The remaining 10% is applied as a weighting toward whichever buyer persona matters most in that market. Criteria are a separate pass/fail gate and carry no score weight.

Criteria

Criteria Primitives

The binary pass/fail requirements a product must clear to be included in a Radar at all — separate from, and evaluated before, the scored criteria. Missing one can mean exclusion, with an appeal path.

Quadrants

Foundation Builders

Stable, reliable, operationally focused solutions that prioritize predictability and continuity over innovation — for buyers who want proven, low-risk technology.

Agile Optimizers

Operationally focused solutions improving through incremental iteration — for buyers who want compounding gains on workflows that already work.

Enduring Innovators

Long-horizon strategic bets whose value compounds over years, not quarters — for buyers who accept a longer time-to-value for transformational outcomes.

Disruptive Pioneers

Leading-edge technology and fast-moving roadmaps that reshape what a category means — for buyers who accept elevated risk for capabilities not available elsewhere.

Note: Quadrants aren’t ranked — no quadrant is better than another. “Leader” and “Challenger” aren’t quadrant names; they’re the two rings describing distance from the center of the Radar, and any of them can occur within any quadrant.

Velocity

Outpacing

The highest Velocity label. Awarded to vendors investing materially and actively shaping the direction of the market (roughly 20–30% of vendors).

Fast Following

The middle Velocity label. Awarded to vendors keeping pace with market leaders and closing capability gaps (roughly 40–50% of vendors).

Slow Following

The baseline Velocity label. Awarded to vendors present in the market but not the primary locus of innovation.

Note: Velocity is scored independently of quadrant placement — a vendor in any quadrant can carry any Velocity label.

“The Radar highlighted the true differentiation and outcomes our customers experience. We’ve leveraged the report across all levels of the funnel.”

“The Radar has been our #1 lead-generating asset from a third-party for the last two years.”

“Your research is a conversation starter, and it’s been helpful from both a field seller perspective, and setting our internal strategy.”