What to Consider When Choosing Forrester as a Research and Advisory Partner

Forrester is a fit if your organization wants continuous, cross-level decision support rather than a one-off report: it combines research, consulting, and live events into an ongoing guidance model, and now delivers research-grounded AI inside Microsoft Teams. It is a weaker fit if you only need a single market study or a narrow data pull, since the value proposition is built around sustained engagement across enterprise, function, and individual leader levels.

What Forrester actually provides

Forrester describes itself as a global market research company focused on helping organizations respond to customer demands and technology change. Its site frames the offering around three connected pieces:

• Research — insight and data drawn from surveying more than 500,000 consumers, executives, and tech leaders annually, per the company.
• Consulting — analysts and consultants working directly with client teams on strategy, technology investment, and customer priorities.
• Live events — convenings that sit alongside research and consulting in what Forrester calls a "continuous guidance model."

The stated goal is that clients "stay ahead of every curve" with current trends, innovations, and data, and act "swiftly and decisively." Treat that as the vendor's positioning, not a guaranteed outcome.

The three-level value structure

Forrester explicitly markets support at "every altitude," which is the most useful lens for judging fit:

If your need sits at only one of these levels, ask during evaluation whether the engagement is scoped and priced for that level alone. The site presents the three as a package, not à la carte.

Forrester AI inside Microsoft Teams

Forrester is positioning AI as central to its current model. Key claims from its site:

• Forrester AI is available in Microsoft Teams, so advice, data, and frameworks appear inside the tool teams already use.
• It is built on Forrester's proprietary research and governed by transparency and trust principles.
• The stated purpose is to deliver expertise "into the moments where decisions get made."

The strategic argument is that as AI becomes "table stakes," advantage shifts to human judgment, expertise, and context — which is the gap Forrester claims to fill. For a buying decision, the practical questions are: which Teams users get access, how answers are sourced and cited, and how usage maps to your contract. The site does not publish those details, so raise them directly with Forrester.

Signals from an existing client

The site includes a testimonial from Jen Burns, SVP of Commercial Operations & Marketing at Dun & Bradstreet, who describes the relationship as integration rather than subscription: "Forrester integrates themselves into our organization. We're one team trying to understand how we drive our initiatives forward together."

That is a vendor-published quote, so weigh it as a signal of the intended working style — embedded, collaborative, ongoing — rather than independent proof. If you want a hands-off research subscription, this framing suggests a mismatch.

A practical evaluation checklist

Before committing, get answers to these:

1. Scope mapping — Which of the three levels (enterprise, function, individual) does the proposed engagement cover, and what changes if you need only one?
2. Delivery mix — How much of the value is research access versus analyst/consultant time versus events? Get the split in writing.
3. AI access terms — Who inside your organization gets Forrester AI in Teams, what research it draws on, and whether usage is capped.
4. Integration depth — Ask for reference calls with clients of similar size and structure to test the "one team" claim.
5. Decision moments — Identify the two or three recurring decisions you want supported, then ask Forrester to show how its model would feed those specifically.

Who should choose Forrester — and who shouldn't

Choose Forrester if you need sustained, multi-level guidance; you want research plus human expertise plus AI delivered where your teams already work; and you can commit to an ongoing relationship rather than a transaction.

Look elsewhere if you need a single benchmark or one-off study; you want pure data licensing without advisory involvement; or your team won't adopt a Teams-based tool.

The site does not publish pricing or contract terms, so confirm cost structure, minimum commitment, and cancellation terms with Forrester before deciding.