The development and consulting company Gartner designated Genexus as a new competitor in the Magic Quadrant for Application Development Platforms. This is excellent news for our industry so we interviewed Gabriel Simonet, CMO of Genexus, to tell us more about it and how they managed to be part of Gartner's Magic Quadrant.
- What is the Gartner Magic Quadrant and how does one become part of it?
- The Magic Quadrant is a study carried out by Gartner, an international IT research consultancy, a reference in the world for decision making by large players. It is carried out in an infinite number of areas, analyzing the providers of different solutions in many aspects. It is a very demanding evaluation and being in the quadrant means for companies an objective evaluation of their capabilities by an independent consulting firm. Although it is not a recognition in itself, being in the Magic Quadrant is an aspiration of many companies, so the news is very welcome".
- How was the process with Gartner and what did they take into account when selecting GeneXus in this case?
- GeneXus has had some sort of relationship with Gartner for a long time. In fact, it has been mentioned in several studies over the last decades. However, it was not until two years ago that we started to work on the relationship with Gartner with a good level of continuity. Two years ago we defined that it was an important issue, if we wanted GeneXus to have more tools to continue expanding markets abroad, and we started working on it. In particular, the Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms evaluates companies based on their vision, the functionality of their platforms, execution capacity and customer satisfaction among other aspects".
- What work did they have to do and for how long to achieve this?
- The process requires that Gartner analysts know about the solution to begin with and then want to know more about aspects of it. Getting to the point where the indicated analysts knew about GeneXus and wanted to know more took about a year, and it was thanks in large part to the fact that we managed to appear a year ago in a couple of Gartner reports: The Cool Vendors for Latin America 2016 and the Cool Vendors for Asia-Pacific 2016. From there, we were able to get closer to where we wanted to be.
Specifically for the Magic Quadrant - we can't go into too many details due to confidentiality issues - but we had to complete some very detailed surveys, which inquired about the history of the company, the markets in which we work, the characteristics of the tool, the vision we have of the future of the market and the tool and, as if that weren't enough, the opinion that international clients had of us. In other words, it wasn't just the Marketing department that worked on it! All areas of the company participated in this project, given that the volume of information and detail required was important, and finally even some clients had to participate in order to complete Gartner's requirements. It was a great learning experience for the whole team.
- What does it mean for GeneXus to be part of the Gartner Magic Quadrant?
- In practice, it's good to be able to answer the question that potential clients sometimes ask "What does Gartner say about you?". From a subjective point of view, it's rewarding to be competing in the same neighborhood as companies that have infinitely more resources and professionals working for them. It encourages us to do more and better, because we see that it's possible.
- Are there other Uruguayan companies that are part of it?
- I can't give a complete answer, since there are many Magic Quadrants and they've been going on for many years. I understand that Bantotal made it up at the time for what was the Magic Quadrant for Banking Solutions."
- What are the ways forward now that you are within this system?
- "For now, we know what is evaluated, what things we need to improve, not only technically but how we communicate or communicate our values and benefits. We know where we are doing well, and we know that we can improve. In a way, it was a process of self-discovery that opens new doors and options for us and motivates us to go further.
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