Edison Group ~ Methodology

Methodology

Edison works with our clients to develop a scope of work and methodology that optimizes their success at reaching their goals. To do this, we utilize a variety of primary and secondary research methodologies, including:
   • Hands-on product testing, benchmarking, CMCS
   • Review product specifications and manuals, web sites, and trade press resources
   • Interviews and/or surveys with competitors, partners, customers, and client

Research Methods

Edison can incorporate a variety of primary and secondary research methodologies, including but not limited to, interviews or surveys with appropriate vendor personnel, outside analysts, customers, and sales representatives; examination of existing Edison research data, hands-on product testing and benchmarking; review of many sources of publicly available information, product documentation and demos, online resources, client-provided materials, and trade press resources.

Hands-on Product Testing
Hands-on product testing uses specific hardware and software combinations to deliver information about product performance, scalability, reliability, installation, implementation, and manageability. A final report will be delivered that includes all data and information uncovered during the testing, as well as test objectives and methodology. Reports can be for internal or client facing audiences.

Competitive Benchmark Testing
Competitive benchmark testing illustrates how your product's performance compares to your competition by running objective comparison tests within the context of the defined functionality, performance expectations, and test parameters. Edison has the capabilities to run existing benchmarks and a proprietary process for creating custom benchmarks. The results can be presented as raw data or within a report or white paper.

CMCS and Manageability Testing
A Comparative Management Costs Study (CMCS), developed by Edison Group, is a product manageability cost evaluation process that compares the ease-of-use or manageability of competing enterprise technology products and assesses their relative cost of management to a business. The CMCS measures the time and complexity required to perform a series of typical management tasks, compares the tasks against workload weightings, assigns a monetary value to that time and effort, and evaluates the results against a set of task-oriented objective and subjective metrics.

Analysis Methods

Depending on the sales tool and what is appropriate and necessary, Edison will review and analyze research data and information, and will develop competitive analysis, subject-matter-expert insight, recommendations to sales, response to competitive news and events, and actionable sales strategies.