Research from OrionX

Today, we are announcing the OrionX Constellation™ research framework as part of our strategy services.

Paraphrasing what I wrote in my last blog when we launched 8 packaged solutions:

One way to see OrionX is as a partner that can help you with content, context, and dissemination. OrionX Strategy can create the right content because it conducts deep analysis and provides a solid perspective in growth segments like Cloud, HPC, IoT, Artifical Intelligence, etc. OrionX Marketing can put that content in the right context by aligning it with your business objectives and customer needs. And OrionX PR can build on that with new content and packaging to pursue the right dissemination, whether by doing the PR work itself or by working with your existing PR resources.

Even if you only use one of the services, the results are more effective because strategy is aware of market positioning and communication requirements; marketing benefits from deep industry knowledge and technical depth; and PR can set a reliable trajectory armed with a coherent content strategy.

Constellation™: Research from OrionX

The Constellation research is all about high quality content. That requires the ability to go deep on technologies, market trends, and customer sentiment. Over the past two years, we have built such a capability.

Given the stellar connotations of the name Orion (not to mention our partner Stephen Perrenod’s book and blog about quantum and astro- physics), it is natural that we would see the players in each market segment as stars in a constellation. Constellations interact and evolve, and stars are of varying size and brightness, their respective positions dependent on cosmic (market) forces and your (customers’) point of view. Capturing that reality in a relatively simple framework has been an exciting achievement that we are proud to unveil.

OrionX Constellation Research Model

Types of Data

The OrionX strategy process collects and organizes data in three categories: market, customer, and product. The Constellation process further divides that into two parameters in each category:

• Market presence and trends: a vendor’s presence in the segment and its ability to shape or embrace market trends
• Customer needs and readiness: a typical customer’s current needs and readiness to adopt a particular product
• Product capabilities and roadmap: a product’s existing capabilities and competitive standing as well as its expected enhancements and replacements in the future

This data is then analyzed to identify salient points which are in turn synthesized into the coherent insights that are necessary for a clear understanding of the dynamics at play and effective market conversations and change management.

Types of Report

The resulting content leads to five types of reports that capture the OrionX perspective on a segment. We call these the five Es:

• Event: industry milestones and periodic or seasonal topics)
• Evolution: historical perspective on a technology or market as a way of defining the segment and understanding the parameters that impact customer sentiment
• Environment: the players (stars) in the segment that is in focus
• Evaluation: how customer needs have evolved and how they evaluate (or should evaluate) the products in a segment
• Excellence: how OrionX analysts see the segment and score each vendor according to six parameters in the three categories of data, two parameters in each category.

OrionX Constellation Decision Tool

Visualizing six distinct parameters, each with its own axis, in three categories cannot be done with the traditional 2×2 or 3×3 diagrams. Indeed, existing models in the industry do quite a good job of providing simple diagrams that rank vendors in a segment.

To simplify this visualization, we have developed the OrionX Constellation Decision Tool. This diagram effectively visualizes the six parameters that capture the core of technology customers’ selection process. (A future blog will drill down into the diagram.)

Sample Reports

While OrionX is not a typical industry analyst firm, we will offer samples of our reports from time to time. We hope they are useful to you and provide a glimpse of our work. They will complement our blog.

As always, thank you for your support and friendship. Please track our progress on social media or contact us for a free consultation or with any comments. We’d love to hear from you.