Introduction to the Aspire Leaderboard

Welcome to the Aspire Leaderboard – your holistic gateway to understanding the CCM and CXM markets! Here we will walk you through the platform in order to help you better understand how the Aspire Leaderboard works.

What is the Aspire Leaderboard?

The Aspire Leaderboard was launched in 2018 by global Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Customer Experience Management (CXM) analyst and market research firm, Aspire Customer Communications Services.

This interactive digital-first comparison tool was born out of a desire to help companies understand the complex and quickly evolving CCM and CXM market, providing users with a visualization of the industry, ranking CCM/CXM Software, Services and Solution providers into a dynamic vendor grid, and enabling users to further evaluate providers based on their individual requirements.

How does the Aspire Leaderboard work?

Participating vendors are analyzed by Aspire’s independent and expert analyst team, and scored using a methodology based on two core aspects:

  • Capabilities, which is an indicator of the strength of the company’s software, services and solutions and business operations, and

  • Strategic Direction, which focuses on the company’s CCM/CXM maturity, vision, and future plans for its offerings

When users access the Aspire Leaderboard, they are given the option to toggle between a dedicated Technology Vendor and Service Provider view

What’s the difference between the different segmentation grid views

In line with market evolution and emerging trends, the 2022 release of the Aspire Leaderboard includes major updates to the way users can segment the market view. This update reflects both the continuing shift from Customer Communications Management (CCM) to Customer Experience Management (CXM) and, within this, the rising popularity and provision of cloud solution and subscription CCM offerings. In adapting the Aspire Leaderboard grids, we are enabling industry professionals to make more informed decisions about the software, solutions and services that best fit their business.

Users can specify their individual requirements using pre-set segmentated grid filters, to quickly and easily identify the most relevant vendors in the following categories:

  • AnyPrem CCM Software
    Solutions that can be deployed on-prem or in a hosted, public, virtual private, or hybrid cloud configuration.
  • Vendor Hosted SaaS CCM
    Cloud-native CCM software which is offered “as a service” (SaaS) hosted and managed directly by the vendors, who are responsible for data security, certification, regulatory compliance, and privacy.
  • Enterprise Communications Processing (ECP)
    Post-composition or downstream processing software which can orchestrate diverse input and print output streams, enhancing communications for accessibility, barcoding, reforming, print production management and more.
  • Communications Experience Platform (CXP)
    Traditional CCM solutions combined with additional capabilities from adjacent fields, addressing communications use cases across the entire customer lifecycle, offered as a single cloud or hosted managed services.
  • Service Providers
    Companies leading with CCM services Including print oriented BPOs, solution integrators, value added resellers, and hosted managed service providers.  

Regardless of the grid being viewed, companies are positioned based on the strength of their combined software, services and/or solutions and their strategic direction. Please note that all those on the lower half typically have a strong offering as well and often excel in their local countries or within a more defined part of the market.

How does the filtering capability work?

One unique characteristic that sets the Aspire Leaderboard apart is in providing users the ability to dynamically filter the ranking grid according to their individual business requirements. Several filtering options are available to users, enabling a personalized approach to viewing and comparing the market.

The Aspire Leaderboard offers premium access to users that want to filter vendors based on further use-cases or individual requirements.

Vendor Profiles

In addition to the market comparison grids, all Aspire Leaderboard subscribers also have access to in-depth analysis of the participating vendors through their individual profile pages. These contain a short company description, the demographics of the company, as well as a video and written analysis by Aspire’s team of expert analysts.

What users can do within the Aspire Leaderboard?

There are two types of subscription packages available for the Aspire Leaderboard:

  • Free Subscription
    Free subscribers can access industry news and insights curated by the Aspire Leaderboard team.  They can also view the default grids for both Technology Vendors and Service Providers, alongside the four Technology Vendor sub-grids.

  • Premium Subscription
    Premium subscribers have access to additional, exclusive content and analysis provided by the Aspire Leaderboard. Alongside the default grids, premium users can take advantage of more detailed filter and customization options. The premium subscription has been tailored to meet the needs of companies going through RFI/RFP processes, to help them gain a better understanding of the differences between vendors relative to their business requirements.

Additional market insight

Alongside the Aspire Leaderboard comparison grids, the site is regularly updated with relevant industry news and events, alongside expert industry insights from Aspire’s global team of industry analysts.

Give us your feedback

The Aspire team would love to hear about your experiences or feedback on the Aspire Leaderboard. If you’d like to share something with us or need more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

* Use-cas filtering is available only for premium subscribers of the Aspire Leaderboard