Executive Brief: Forrester Research
Forrester Research: Strategic Assessment Report
Executive Summary
Forrester Research is experiencing a structural decline that extends beyond cyclical market weakness. Annual revenue fell ten percent from $480.8 million in 2023 to $432.5 million in 2024, with contract value—the company's key leading indicator—declining seven percent year-over-year. The company has executed multiple workforce reductions and recorded an $83.9 million goodwill impairment charge in early 2025, signaling management's own recognition of diminished enterprise value.
Three competitive forces are capturing Forrester's market share. Gartner, operating at seven times Forrester's scale with $3.6 billion in technology research revenue, continues extending its dominant position through superior buyer-side relationships and the iconic Magic Quadrant methodology. Peer review platforms including G2, TrustRadius, and Gartner Peer Insights have fundamentally disrupted the analyst model by offering free, crowdsourced intelligence that many enterprise buyers now prefer to expert opinion. Boutique specialists have fragmented the market by delivering deeper domain expertise than generalist analysts can match.
Client satisfaction data reveals the mechanisms driving attrition. Over 42 percent of analyst relations professionals surveyed expressed frustration with Forrester, citing aggressive pricing tactics, coverage gaps from analyst bandwidth constraints, concerns about Wave methodology transparency, and research that lacks sufficient depth for complex purchasing decisions. The company's strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence, while potentially prescient, has accelerated near-term attrition among clients in traditional technology categories who perceive diminished coverage value.
The fundamental challenge is structural rather than operational. Enterprise buyers increasingly question whether traditional analyst subscriptions deliver sufficient incremental value over free alternatives to justify premium pricing. Forrester must either demonstrate differentiated value that crowdsourced platforms cannot replicate or accept repositioning as a smaller, more specialized firm serving segments where expert synthesis remains essential.
Issues and Problems
Financial Deterioration
Forrester's financial performance has deteriorated across all key metrics. Revenue declined from $480.8 million in 2023 to $432.5 million in 2024, a fall of approximately ten percent. The decline has continued into 2025, with first-quarter revenues of $89.9 million representing a ten percent year-over-year decrease from $100.1 million. Contract value, the forward-looking indicator most closely watched by management, fell seven percent to $290.9 million.
The company's response has been defensive cost management rather than growth investment. Workforce reductions were announced in January 2023, May 2023, February 2024, and January 2025. While these actions have preserved margins—adjusted operating margin guidance of eight to nine percent for 2025 represents slight improvement—they have created a self-reinforcing cycle where reduced analyst capacity leads to coverage gaps that accelerate client attrition.
The $83.9 million goodwill impairment charge recorded in first quarter 2025 represents management's acknowledgment that the research segment's value has permanently declined. Full-year 2025 revenue guidance of $395 million to $405 million implies continued contraction of four to eight percent.
Competitive Displacement by Gartner
Gartner's structural advantages have proven difficult for Forrester to counter. With technology research revenues of $3.6 billion, Gartner operates at approximately seven times Forrester's scale. This disparity creates compounding advantages: Gartner can invest more heavily in analyst recruitment, maintain deeper coverage across technology categories, and sustain the brand recognition that makes Magic Quadrant inclusion essential for vendor credibility.
Critically, approximately seventy percent of Gartner's revenue derives from end-user clients rather than technology vendors. This revenue composition gives Gartner stronger perceived objectivity among enterprise buyers and greater influence over actual purchasing decisions. Forrester's revenue mix, while not publicly disclosed at equivalent granularity, is perceived as more vendor-dependent, raising questions about analytical independence that peer review platforms do not face.
Disruption from Peer Review Platforms
The emergence of crowdsourced review platforms represents an existential challenge to the traditional analyst model. G2 has accumulated millions of verified user reviews and attracts tens of millions of annual visitors. TrustRadius hosts approximately 470,000 reviews with twelve million annual visitors. Gartner's own Peer Insights platform, with over two million reviews, represents the traditional analyst community's recognition that crowdsourced intelligence has become essential.
These platforms offer structural advantages that traditional analysts cannot match. Entry-level access is free, eliminating the budget barrier that excludes smaller enterprises from analyst relationships. Review volume creates statistical validity—aggregated experiences from thousands of users may produce more reliable conclusions than individual analyst judgments. Most importantly, buyers perceive peer reviews as unbiased in ways that analyst reports, potentially influenced by vendor relationships, may not be.
The preference for peer intelligence over expert opinion reflects a generational shift in information consumption. Enterprise buyers who grew up with consumer review platforms like Yelp and Amazon expect similar transparency in business technology evaluation. Traditional analyst authority, built on information scarcity and expert credentials, carries less weight with buyers who can access abundant peer experiences directly.
Client Satisfaction Failures
Survey data reveals widespread client dissatisfaction with Forrester's value delivery. In the Institute of Influencer and Analyst Relations annual survey, over 42.5 percent of analyst relations professionals expressed frustration with Forrester Research. Complaints centered on pricing tactics, coverage quality, and methodology concerns.
Pricing dissatisfaction reflects a perceived disconnect between subscription costs and delivered value. Clients reported that Forrester's new offerings made it extremely difficult to modify legacy contracts without renewing early at higher rates. Industry discussion groups revealed that members were divided on whether Forrester had enriched its value proposition sufficiently to justify price increases. The consensus among analyst relations professionals was a call for Forrester to abandon high-pressure sales tactics that had damaged client relationships.
Coverage constraints have become visible as analyst headcount has remained flat or declined while resources shifted toward artificial intelligence topics. Analysts are spread too thin across coverage areas, resulting in missed or pushed publication deadlines and inconsistent research calendars. For clients who structure vendor evaluations around anticipated Forrester publications, these delays reduce subscription utility.
The Forrester Wave methodology has attracted specific criticism. Recent changes limit vendors to rebutting only fifteen percent of scored criteria, reducing their ability to correct perceived inaccuracies. Industry observers have characterized some Wave reports as superficial, with scoring methodologies that assign numerical ratings without sufficient explanatory context. Accusations persist that exclusion from Wave evaluations correlates with vendor revenue rather than market relevance.
Strategic Pivot Consequences
Forrester's aggressive reallocation of analyst resources toward generative AI coverage has created unintended consequences. While AI represents genuine market interest, the pivot has come at the expense of traditional technology categories where Forrester maintained established positions. Clients in enterprise software, customer experience, and other historical coverage areas have experienced diminished analyst attention as resources redirected to AI topics.
This strategic choice may prove prescient if AI displaces other technology priorities over time. In the near term, however, it has accelerated client attrition among buyers who perceive reduced value in subscriptions that no longer address their primary research needs. The AI pivot exemplifies a broader tension between positioning for future relevance and serving current client requirements.
What Can Management Do
Differentiate on Synthesis and Context
Forrester's sustainable competitive advantage lies not in information gathering, where crowdsourced platforms excel, but in expert synthesis and contextual interpretation. Peer reviews tell buyers what other users experienced; analyst research should tell buyers what those experiences mean for their specific circumstances and how market dynamics will evolve. Management should reposition Forrester's value proposition around synthesis capabilities that aggregated peer data cannot replicate.
This repositioning requires investment in analytical depth rather than coverage breadth. Fewer, more substantive research deliverables would differentiate Forrester from both the volume-oriented peer platforms and the breadth-focused Gartner approach. Quality concentration would also address bandwidth constraints by focusing analyst resources on deliverables where expert judgment adds genuine value.
Restructure Pricing for Value Alignment
Current pricing structures, which bundle research access with inquiry time and advisory services, obscure value and create friction when clients seek contract modifications. Management should consider unbundled pricing that allows clients to pay specifically for the components they value, with transparent per-deliverable or per-inquiry options that compete more directly with peer platform economics.
A freemium model for basic research access would expand Forrester's addressable market and create a conversion funnel for premium services. Free access to summary-level content would demonstrate value to budget-constrained buyers who currently default to peer platforms, while detailed analysis, custom research, and advisory relationships would remain premium offerings. This approach acknowledges that information scarcity is no longer a defensible business model.
Address Wave Methodology Credibility
The Forrester Wave's credibility problems require direct attention. Management should increase transparency around inclusion criteria, scoring methodologies, and the relationship between vendor revenue and evaluation participation. Publishing detailed scoring rationales, expanding rebuttal allowances, and committing to evaluate significant vendors regardless of client status would address persistent pay-to-play perceptions.
Customer feedback integration, which Forrester has begun emphasizing, represents a promising direction that acknowledges the value of peer perspectives while adding analyst interpretation. Hybrid methodologies that combine crowdsourced user data with expert assessment could differentiate Wave evaluations from both pure peer platforms and traditional analyst opinion.
Rebalance AI Investment
The strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence should be rebalanced to maintain coverage quality in traditional categories while building AI expertise. Complete resource reallocation has created coverage gaps that accelerate attrition among existing clients. A more measured approach would sustain historical coverage areas at adequate quality levels while developing AI capabilities incrementally.
Management should also leverage AI tools internally to enhance analyst productivity rather than only producing AI-focused research. Generative AI applications in research synthesis, data analysis, and content production could address bandwidth constraints without proportional headcount increases. The company's Izola AI tool represents a step in this direction, but broader internal AI adoption could multiply analyst effectiveness across all coverage areas.
Pursue Strategic Partnerships
Standalone competition against Gartner's scale advantages may prove unsustainable. Management should evaluate strategic partnerships or acquisition scenarios that would provide access to complementary capabilities or distribution channels. Potential partners include peer review platforms seeking analyst credibility, consulting firms seeking research assets, or financial information providers seeking technology coverage.
A merger with a complementary firm could create a differentiated competitor with combined strengths that neither party possesses independently. Alternatively, acquisition by a larger information services company could provide resources for investment while preserving Forrester's brand and methodology within a broader portfolio.
Bottom Line
Forrester Research confronts a strategic inflection point that will determine whether the company stabilizes as a smaller but viable specialist or continues declining toward irrelevance. The current trajectory—revenue falling eight to ten percent annually, contract value eroding, workforce shrinking, and competitive position weakening—is not sustainable.
The fundamental challenge is structural rather than operational. Enterprise buyers have access to abundant market intelligence through peer review platforms, vendor content, and freely available analysis. The information scarcity that once justified premium analyst subscriptions has largely disappeared. Forrester must demonstrate differentiated value that free alternatives cannot provide, or accept that its addressable market has permanently contracted.
Management's strategic choices will determine outcomes. Doubling down on synthesis and interpretation, where expert judgment adds genuine value, offers a defensible competitive position. Competing on information volume or coverage breadth, where Gartner and peer platforms hold structural advantages, does not. Pricing structures must align with perceived value, methodology credibility must be restored, and AI investments must balance future positioning against current client requirements.
The analyst industry is not disappearing, but it is consolidating around firms that deliver differentiated value at appropriate price points. Forrester possesses the brand recognition, methodology frameworks, and analyst expertise to compete in this reconfigured landscape. Whether management can execute the necessary strategic pivots while managing near-term financial pressures will determine whether Forrester emerges as a sustainable competitor or a case study in disruption-driven decline.
For investors, clients, and employees, the next twelve to eighteen months will prove decisive. Stabilization of contract value would signal successful adaptation; continued erosion would suggest that structural decline has become irreversible. The company's 2025 guidance implies management expects continued contraction, but the magnitude of that contraction—and whether it represents a floor or a waypoint—remains uncertain.
Appendix: Source Documentation
Financial Data Sources
Forrester Revenue and Contract Value
2024 annual revenue: $432.47 million, down 10.05% from 2023 ($480.8 million)
Q1 2025 revenue: $89.9 million, down 10% from Q1 2024 ($100.1 million)
Contract value Q1 2025: $290.9 million, down 7% year-over-year
Full-year 2025 guidance: $395-405 million revenue (decline of 4-8%)
Goodwill impairment charge Q1 2025: $83.9 million (Research segment)
Source: Forrester Research investor relations, SEC filings, Business Wire earnings releases
Gartner Comparative Data
Gartner technology research revenues 2022: $3.6 billion
End-user client revenue proportion: approximately 70%
Analyst headcount: over 1,700 technology experts
Source: Gartner annual reports, Starsight analyst firm analysis
Client Satisfaction Data
IIAR Survey Results (2022-2023)
42.5%+ of analyst relations professionals expressed frustrations with Forrester
Key complaints: pricing tactics, contract inflexibility, declining relevance
Specific feedback: "Forrester's new offerings made it extremely difficult to change legacy contracts without renewing early at higher rates"
Consensus recommendation: Forrester should "rethink using high-pressure sales tactics"
Source: Institute of Influencer and Analyst Relations (IIAR) annual survey, IIAR discussion groups
G2 User Reviews
Criticism: Reports "not sufficient when it comes to knowledge about particular industries or technology"
Criticism: Expectation for reports to be "more thorough and detailed, especially on smaller and mid-sized providers"
Criticism: "Absence of AI/ML technology is a miss—insights lack depth"
Positive feedback: User-friendly interface, customer-centric approach
Source: G2.com Forrester product reviews
Competitive Intelligence
Peer Review Platform Scale
G2: Millions of verified reviews, tens of millions of annual visitors
TrustRadius: ~470,000 reviews, 12 million annual visitors
Gartner Peer Insights/Digital Markets: 2+ million reviews
Source: Platform disclosures, industry analysis (Oden, 6sense)
Industry Analyst Observations
"Forrester appears to have a flat or declining headcount, which, combined with the AI focus, is leaving analysts spread too thin across coverage areas"
"This is