How the Aspire Leaderboard Works

1. Who is Aspire?

Aspire is a boutique consulting firm specializing in the Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Customer Experience Management (CXM) industries. Through deep market expertise and global insights, we work with Enterprises, CCM/CXM Software, Services and Solution providers, and Business Advisories and Private Equity Firms, to help you achieve your CCM goals.

2. Why did Aspire launch the Aspire Leaderboard?

The CCM/CXM industry is evolving at a rapid pace. The Aspire Leaderboard aims to capture this evolution. Through in-depth analysis and industry expertise the team at Aspire has compared and contrasted the major CCM/CXM Software, Services and Solution providers, mapping them across a varirty of different grids, taking into account their capabilities versus their strategic direction.

The Aspire Leaderboard has been engineered to take the complexity out of CCM/CXM decision-making. Delivering clear, insightful, interactive analysis and intelligence, which can be tailored to your job role and industry, it provides a platform that enables the sharing of best practice information, while helping end-users find the best software, services and solutions for their business. 

3. How does the Aspire Leaderboard work?

The Aspire Leaderboard is a dynamic, digital-first, vendor positioning grid that ranks vendors across the CCM/CXM industry. Users have the ability to view a number of pre-set grids, providing different views of the market.

Each grid consists of a rectangular shape, with the X-axis showing strength of Strategic Direction and the Y-axis showing strength of Capabilities. 

In addition to the static main grids, the Aspire Leaderboard comes with a variety of dynamic grids, which are accessible through the 'filtering' option. Free subscribers can access pre-set use case grids, while sponsored / paid users can modify and tailor the filtering and use cases to their own needs. 

4. Who is the Aspire Leaderboard for and how do I use it?

The Aspire Leaderboard currently helps end-users analyze CCM Software, Services and Solutions providers based on their capabilities and vision. It provides a rich and relevant vendor evaluation experience for end-users, particularly new buyers within line-of-business functions and marketing roles. 

Free registration ensures that you can keep up-to-date with the latest industry news, events, and relevant analyst insights. Premium content, tailored for companies going through an RFP process, is additional and requires a paid subscription.

5. What makes the Aspire Leaderboard unique?

The Aspire Leaderboard is a digital-first ranking grid that provides end-users the ability to search for vendors according to their preference. Unlike other ranking platforms offered by research firms, the Aspire Leaderboard provides a dynamic interface where users can use filter features to display the vendors based on the attributes they’re looking for.

6. Is the Aspire Leaderboard vendor-neutral?

Yes. The Aspire Leaderboard is based on fair and independent evaluation of the participating vendors. To preserve our independence, Aspire, or any Aspire employee/analyst will not:

  • Own stock or shares in any of the participating vendors

  • Have a reseller or distribution relationship in place with any of the participating vendors

  • Be commissioned, remunerated, or be benefitted in whatever form by participating vendors, with a goal to obtain higher ranking or positioning 

Our integrity is extremely important to us, and we recognize that our reputation is the most important asset that we have in the industry. 

7. How does the ranking process work?

Every vendor on the Aspire Leaderboard will have completed an in-depth questionnaire, supported by one or more briefings. We have contacted every customer or partner that was referred to us by the vendors to get honest opinions on how the software is being used in practice. Furthermore, we have liased with many of our own contacts to independently verify and validate what we have learned from vendors and contacts.

Aspire's ranking is based on two scores, a H-score (horizontal score) and V-score (vertical score), which are expressed by capability. The following mechanism determines the scores

H-score

  • Strength of strategic direction

    • Scoring elements 

      • Ability to present a vision that is credible and impactful

      • Future development direction, either on roadmap or as part of defined strategy; per capability  

      • Utilizing modern development methodologies and concepts

      • Uniqueness of the taken approach; ability to shape own direction in market

  • Score expressed from 0 to 100, with 0 being extremely passive and 100 being extremely disruptive. 

V-scores

  • Strength of capability

    • Scoring elements 

      • Technical depth and breadth of features within capability in relation to other offerings in the market

      • Degree of innovation of the capability; ability to make a difference for the customer

      • Global impact; ability to sell in North America and Europe

    • Score expressed from 0 to 100, with 0 being extremely weak and 100 being extremely powerful. Vendors that do not (actively) sell in North America and Europe cannot have h-scores higher than 50.

8. Is the Aspire Leaderboard free to use?

The Aspire Leaderboard has three different levels of access:

  1. Unregistered
    Unregistered visitors to the Aspire Leaderboard coming from search engines or not logged in can access some news and events information, as well as a portion of vendor profile pages. All unregistered users will be prompted to register for free, for greater access to the site.

  2. Free Subscription
    Users that have signed up for a free account on the Aspire Leaderboard can access the Aspire Leaderboard and view all the pre-set grids. They can visit the vendor profile pages, and access Aspire content and insights.

  3. Premium Subscription
    Paid and sponsored users have the added ability to create their own, customized, dynamic grids by taking advantage of detailed filtering options. This subscription level has been designed with the needs of companies going through an RFI/RFP process in mind, delivering an in-depth view of the difference between vendors relative to their exact business requirements. 

9. Is it possible to see my bills?

At the moment, we will send your bills via e-mail. We are currently working on a billing portal where you can access your bills in the website. We will keep you updated once we've launched this feature.

10. What credit cards do you accept?

U.S. businesses can accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, Discover, and Diners Club.

Australian, Canadian, European, Hong Kongese, Japanese, and Singaporean businesses can accept Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

11. How do you deal with sales taxes and VAT?

We will invoice you for the net amount and specify taxes on your bill.

We charge 20% for UK. For the rest of Europe you will need to provide a VAT ID, which allows us to reserve charge.

11. How do you define and breakdown organization sizes?

With regard to organization size, Aspire defines businesses categories as follows:

  • SMB
    • Micro SMB: up to 10 employees
    • Small SMB: 10-99 employees
    • Medium SMB: 100-249 employees
    • Large SMB: 250-499 employees
  • Small Enterprise 
    • 500-1999 employees
  • Mid-market
    • 2,000-19,999 employees
  • Large enterprise
    • 20,000+ employees