We have published an extended and updated edition of our 2017 SageNote of the same name. The original note addressed a question that AR teams were already encountering eight years ago: what should you do when Gartner publishes a Magic Quadrant for your market but does not issue a companion Critical Capabilities report?
The question has only become more pressing since then. Gartner’s ongoing organizational changes, shifting analyst assignments, and evolving research priorities mean that CC reports are skipped or delayed in more markets than many AR professionals expect. At the same time, enterprise buyers have become more dependent on structured product comparisons — and more prone to treating the MQ graphic as a product ranking when no CC exists to correct that interpretation.
This updated edition reflects what we have learned from working with clients across multiple markets where this gap has appeared. The seven-step framework has been refined with clearer scoring definitions, a standardized evidence sources model, and worked examples showing how use-case summary tables should be structured. We have added new guidance on governance and credibility — the single biggest factor that determines whether an internal scorecard strengthens or undermines your competitive position.
The SageNote is available now in the SageCircle library. Related reading includes SN0073 (Gartner’s Magic Quadrant: Don’t Obsess, Don’t Ignore), SN0077 (How Vendor Sales Should Respond), and SN0137 (Leveraging Objectivity: Using Analyst Research in the Sales Cycle).
— SageCircle
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.