The two vendors join a crowded top-right quadrant alongside familiar names such as SAP, IFS, Infor, and Epicor, underscoring a year defined by innovation and acceleration in AI-driven automation.

No vendors were added or dropped from this year’s report, but the positions have shifted dramatically, with this year’s report featuring no Challengers or Visionaries – just Leaders and Niche Players.

Arguably, this is a sign of a market reaching a critical inflection point, as ERP systems evolve from transactional engines to intelligent orchestration platforms.

The Definition of an ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises

A cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) for product-centric enterprises supports and automates operational activities across manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain sectors.

These systems serve as the backbone of modern product-driven organizations, connecting HR, manufacturing, logistics, and finance, while enabling the scalability and agility that global operations demand.

Vendors in this market deliver not only the infrastructure and core ERP applications but also continuous updates, platform extensions, and the AI-driven intelligence increasingly expected by enterprises.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

As the name suggests, Magic Quadrant Leaders are the top-performing vendors that demonstrate the strongest vision for how cloud technology and AI can enhance ERP systems, paired with the ability to execute at scale.

This year’s leaders are:

• Oracle (Fusion Cloud ERP)
• Microsoft
• SAP (Cloud ERP)
• IFS
• Oracle (NetSuite)
• Epicor
• Infor

Oracle (Fusion Cloud ERP)

Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP maintains its place at the top of the Leader tree for 2025.

The platform was praised for its breadth of capabilities and its AI Agent Studio, which allows customers to design and orchestrate custom AI agents.

Oracle’s strong presence across manufacturing, finance, supply chain, and HCM is underpinned by a unified data model and enhanced Redwood user experience.

Gartner highlights the company’s complex corporate capability coverage and agentic AI innovation as key differentiators, while noting that support quality and pricing complexity remain areas for continued improvement.

Microsoft

Microsoft remains a dominant leader through its Dynamics 365 platform, leveraging the power of Copilot-driven AI agents for process automation and supplier communications.

Gartner highlighted Microsoft’s integrated cloud stack – uniting Azure, Power BI, and Copilot Studio – as a defining strength. With its global reach and multi-language support, the platform continues to scale effectively across industries.

However, Gartner advised enterprises to carefully assess customization complexity and industry coverage, particularly for manufacturing-heavy deployments that depend on ISV extensions.

SAP (Cloud ERP)

Formerly known as SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, SAP Cloud ERP continues to stand tall among Leaders.

In particular, Gartner spotlighted its Joule AI framework, which expands conversational and agentic AI across the suite.

SAP’s broad functionality – from PLM and supply chain to sustainability management – remains a core strength.

Yet, Gartner warned of adoption challenges among large enterprises and portfolio complexity that can make navigating SAP’s ERP lineup difficult.

IFS

IFS’ strong industry depth and an accelerating AI strategy helped the vendor move from Visionary to Leader in 2025.

Its flagship IFS Cloud solution combines enterprise asset management, field service, and manufacturing execution capabilities under a composable, unified platform.

Gartner highlighted IFS’s composability and automation capabilities as standout features, but cautions that ongoing ownership changes and partner support consistency require close evaluation.

Oracle (NetSuite)

Oracle NetSuite moved from Challenger to Leader in 2025, reflecting its continued expansion and ecosystem strength.

Gartner praised NetSuite’s ability to support rapidly scaling midmarket organizations and its analytics-led approach, which is powered by Oracle EPM and analytics warehouse integration.

The vendor’s SuiteSuccess vertical expansion and increasing use of the Redwood design system enhance usability and industry depth. Still, Gartner noted that NetSuite’s manufacturing depth and agentic AI maturity lag behind larger enterprise offerings.

Epicor

Epicor retained its position as a Leader with its Epicor Industry ERP Cloud, including Kinetic and Prophet 21.

Gartner praised Epicor’s robust AI roadmap, highlighting its Prism AI Agent, which enables natural language interactions and agentic automation designed specifically for midsize enterprises.

However, the analyst noted that Epicor’s focused approach may limit its appeal for very large or cross-industry enterprises.

Infor

Infor impressed with its industry-specific CloudSuites, offering preconfigured process templates and deep vertical coverage.

The report emphasized the vendor’s Infor Velocity Suite, which packages GenAI, process mining, and RPA tools to drive faster customer value realization.

However, despite these strengths, the vendor has had a noticeable slide down the Leader quadrant since 2024. Arguably, this is due to its portfolio complexity and reliance on diverse partners, which can make solution mapping more challenging for multinational organizations.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

This year’s Niche Players remain consistent, each carving out success in targeted markets:

• Plex, by Rockwell Automation
• Priority Software
• SAP Business ByDesign

Plex, by Rockwell Automation

Having been named a Niche Player last year, Plex continued to serve as a trusted choice for midsize manufacturers in 2025, blending its Smart Manufacturing Platform with integrated MES and QMS capabilities.

However, Gartner cautioned that global coverage and non-manufacturing functionality remain limited, and some users cite support responsiveness as an area for improvement.

Priority Software

Priority remains a go-to ERP option for cost-conscious small and midsize manufacturers, particularly in EMEA. Gartner commends its fast implementation timelines and strong integration capabilities via open APIs and low-code tools.

Its conversational AI features and automatic delivery-planning functions demonstrate a commitment to innovation, even if its AI maturity trails market leaders. Gartner also noted its regional focus and partner reliance may constrain expansion beyond core markets.

SAP Business ByDesign

Like Oracle, SAP also boasted two appearances in the 2025 report. Unfortunately, SAP Business ByDesign could not break out of the Niche Players quadrant.

Gartner believes that the platform remains a stable, midmarket-focused ERP suite known for its reliability and integration with SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).

However, SAP’s decision to delist the product for new customers in 2026 raises concerns over its long-term roadmap.

A Final Takeaway from the 2025 Cloud ERP Magic Quadrant

The 2025 Magic Quadrant confirms what many in the ERP space have long anticipated: AI has officially taken center stage.

Across leaders and niche players alike, Gartner highlights agentic AI as the next major leap, with vendors embedding AI agents to automate supplier management, demand planning, and financial reconciliation.

As Gartner noted in the report:

“By 2027, 60 percent of customers replacing ERP applications will select software for the platform and business process orchestration capabilities as critical requirements, along with transactional capabilities, in order to deliver more-tailored outcomes.”

That orchestration capability, powered by AI and composability, will define the next generation of ERP modernization.

See how the latest report compares to last year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises 2024.

For more Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, check out the following articles:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) 2025
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI Platforms 2025
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation Platforms (SFA) 2025

AWS, Five9, and Talkdesk join them in the Leader square, with the latter bouncing back after placing as a Visionary last year.

Content Guru also rises up the pile. It has shifted from the Niche Player quadrant and is now a Challenger. Meanwhile, Cisco moves in the opposite direction.

8×8 has dropped out of the evaluation, yet Zoom enters and takes its place as a Niche Player.

Alongside 8×8, Google, Microsoft, and Sprinklr are prominent CCaaS providers that don’t feature in the Magic Quadrant matrix.

The Definition of Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)

All cloud applications that enable customer support teams to manage multichannel conversations fall under the term “Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)”.

The providers included in the Magic Quadrant assemble those apps, both native and third-party, on CCaaS platforms, enabling service experiences led by both humans and AI.

Yet, it’s not all about facilitating conversations. CCaaS platforms will also offer solutions for analytics and reporting, agent assistance, and workforce engagement management (WEM).

While Gartner’s definition is more comprehensive, that’s ultimately what each vendor in the report offers.

The analyst evaluates them on such capabilities, alongside pricing models, support services, integrations, verified customer feedback (stripped from Gartner Peer Insights), and more.

In doing so, the research firm splits nine of the most prominent industry players into four groups: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Here’s how they performed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders sit in the top right-hand square of the Magic Quadrant, scoring above average in their “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision”. This year’s Leaders are:

• NiCE
• Genesys
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Five9
• Talkdesk

NiCE

NiCE has secured several major enterprise CCaaS deals this calendar year, including two nine-figure mega-contracts.

Key to these deals are its advanced global support services, which Gartner lauds, alongside the vendor’s “technical account manager support”.

Additionally, the analyst pinpointed “advanced AI and analytical capabilities” as a strength. However, it didn’t note how NiCE’s burgeoning enterprise partnerships, with the likes of AWS, ServiceNow, and Snowflake, aid that AI strategy and set the stage for end-to-end, automated resolution flows.

Also, Gartner fails to mention NiCE’s workforce engagement management (WEM) heritage, which continues to be a significant differentiator, especially with the top two third-party alternatives – Verint and Calabrio – set to merge. However, in fairness, confirmation of this merger seemingly came through after the research firm completed its evaluation.

Genesys

Genesys excels in big enterprise deployments, especially from its own on-premise install base, offering tried-and-tested playbooks, process maps, and solutions to make migrations easier.

Gartner recognizes these strengths, alongside its “adaptability and innovation”, highlighting Genesys’s rapid delivery of new, differentiated features.

Somewhat remarkably, however, Gartner doesn’t mention Genesys’s leading role in converging CCaaS and CRM solutions, despite noting this as a key market trend.

Its recent $1.5BN investment from Salesforce and ServiceNow seemingly rubberstamps Genesys’s strategy here, with the two CRM vendors taking learnings from their collaboration with the CCaaS revenue leader and applying those industry-wide.

As that trend kicks into gear, Genesys will continue to play a leading role in converging the customer support stack.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Gartner notes that Amazon Connect clients often report their satisfaction with building “functionally rich AI capabilities”, leveraging the broader AWS portfolio.

As this suggests, AWS uses its size well and enables differentiated innovation.

AWS also wins praise for its “customizable solutions”, which seems to reinforce perceptions that Amazon Connect is a platform for the builders.

Yet, the perceptions are outdated. For instance, its major platform re-architecture, announced in March 2025, embedded first-party AI capabilities across its platform, enabling customers to deploy native AI in “just a few clicks”.

As such, Amazon Connect is now more of a solution for businesses that want an “oven-ready” platform, as well as those looking to build. Unfortunately, whether intended or not, this report somewhat reinforces those antiquated notions.

Elsewhere, Gartner praises AWS’s “ability to scale”. Yet, surprisingly, omits its pricing model, which advances on consumption-based pricing. Indeed, it includes a single price for all AI features, lowers costs for AI testing, and ensures customers don’t need to pay for unused seats. That’s often a big deal-winner for AWS.

Five9

Five9 has endured some negative press in 2025 with multiple rounds of layoffs. However, its CCaaS revenue growth held firm, rising at a double-digit rate.

Gartner credits strengths in its “support services” and “broad market fit”, with Five9 growing far beyond its North American roots and delivering successful enterprise implementations worldwide.

Many of those implementations have a “high attach rate for AI Agent functionality”, per Gartner, with Five9 quick out of the gates in releasing AI agent functionality.

That speed reflects deeper strengths in contact automation, with it being the only CCaaS vendor to make it onto CX Today’s top conversational AI providers to watch list in 2025.

Talkdesk

After a two-year absence, Talkdesk is back in the Leader’s quadrant. Its “industry-specific solutions” are a big reason why, as it not only customizes its products to the sector, but pre-packages specialized integrations and workflows to accelerate migrations and innovation.

The solutions have expanded Talkdesk’s market, as Gartner emphasizes. Yet, another key solution that the CCaaS provider released helped here: Talkdesk Embedded.

Interestingly, this solution helps “embed” elements of Talkdesk’s cloud contact center into third-party CRM and helpdesk systems. Not only is that innovative from a platform convergence perspective, but it makes Talkdesk an attractive option for system integrators (SIs).

Lastly, Gartner lauds Talkdesk’s account managers, who have seemingly helped its customer satisfaction levels rise sharply over the past 18 months.

Yet, CTO Munil Shah, who arrived in April 2024, also deserves plaudits. Indeed, since his arrival, Talkdesk hasn’t just executed on its industry-specific strategy but delivered several unique innovations to boost the customer and employee experience. Its AI Rewriter is an excellent example.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant place in the top left-hand square of the Magic Quadrant, excelling in their “ability to execute” but trailing Leaders in their “completeness of vision”. This year’s Challengers are:

• Content Guru

Content Guru

Like Genesys, Content Guru has established a reputation for doing “big” well. Gartner underscores this, alongside the vendor’s suitability for brands with significant scale and customization requirements.

Additionally, the research firm recognizes “high service availability” and “AI service orchestration” as key differentiators for the brand.

However, Gartner doesn’t reference how Content Guru is converging CCaaS and customer data platform (CDPs). That is a big differentiator, as the provider helps its customers to establish an omni-data layer from which all its AI innovation can spring, setting customers up for long-term success.

Given this, it’s perhaps surprising that Content Guru didn’t score better in its “completeness of vision”. Nevertheless, Gartner does raise “negotiated SLAs” and “complex pricing” as two of its cautions.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant sit in the bottom right-hand square of the Magic Quadrant, scoring well in their “completeness of vision” but lagging Leaders in their “ability to execute”. This year’s Visionaries are:

• There are no Visionaries in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CCaaS.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche Players in the Magic Quadrant sit in the bottom left-hand square of the Magic Quadrant. While they have accrued a strong industry presence, their “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision” fall behind the market Leaders, according to Gartner. This year’s Niche Players are:

• Cisco
• Zoom
• Vonage

Cisco

Cisco is one of only two “Customers’ Choice” vendors, which Gartner tagged in its latest Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” for CCaaS report. That reflects the high satisfaction rates of its install base.

As such, it’s surprising that the analyst didn’t note positive word of mouth as a core strength. Instead, it applauded how Cisco has converged CCaaS with UCaaS and CPaaS. Indeed, this combination boosts the Webex Contact Center in various ways, such as enabling swarming and next-level proactive customer service. As AI agents soon start leading outbound conversations, that latter strength will come increasingly into its own.

Meanwhile, the report also commends Cisco for its “global support network” and “advanced security measures”. The latter demonstrates how Cisco, like AWS, is doing an excellent job of leveraging its broader portfolio to deliver unique innovation.

Nevertheless, it has dropped into the Niche Player Quadrant. Amongst Cisco’s listed cautions are its “multiple administrative interfaces” and “limited third-party integrations”, which are possible justifications here.

Zoom

Zoom only entered the CCaaS space in 2022, but ever since, its innovation streak has gone from strength to strength, while its install base has surged.

Much of that is due to its reputation for delivering consumer-grade tech to the enterprise. Yet, Gartner also pinpoints its “tight UCaaS integration” as a principal reason, alongside its “native AI functionality” and “simplified setup and administration.”

However, Zoom doesn’t just think of CCaaS and UCaaS. On one platform, it delivers both solutions alongside conversational AI, sales intelligence, Workvivo, and many more applications. That single ecosystem sets the stage for original innovation and data sharing that can set Zoom apart.

As such, expect Zoom to rise in the coming years, as it also addresses the “breadth of features” and “third-party integrations” concerns Gartner pinpoints in its report.

Vonage

Like Cisco, Vonage wins plaudits for converging CCaaS, UCaaS, and CPaaS. Its CPaaS offering is particularly strong, though, enabling access to APIs – like 5G network APIs – that strengthen the spine of Vonage’s contact center platform.

Gartner also applauds how Vonage has optimized its solution for the midmarket and its “Salesforce Service Cloud integration”, although the latter doesn’t appear much different from the integrations offered by Genesys and AWS.

Where Vonage does stand apart is in its Intelligent Workspace, which leverages AI to rearrange the screen based on the call, enabling agents to better navigate their desktops.

However, Gartner cautions toward the provider’s “system reporting” and “tendency toward use of CRM partner technology.”

The CCaaS Magic Quadrant: A Third-Party Take

For an extra perspective, CX Today invited Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, to share an alternative take.

Kerravala anticipated NiCE and Genesys would lead the pack again, yet agreed with AWS creeping closer to Gartner’s frontrunners.

“As a late entrant, for Amazon to have made its way into such a strong position in such a short period of time is a testament to how much they have invested in this business, said Kerravala. “They came to market around the same time as Twilio but have certainly set themselves apart.”

Five9 also maintains its place at the top. However, the analyst cautions about its long-term sticking power. While acknowledging its CTO as an industry thought-leader, Kerravala referenced the executive turnover, since Gartner completed its research, as a concern. After all, it likely indicates flux in its strategy.

“[This] shows the flaw in the Magic Quadrant,” he noted. “It’s a document that is supposed to live on for a year but can’t adapt to market changes.”

Nevertheless, Kerravala’s most significant gripe is with Cisco’s drop from a Challenger to a Niche Player. “Gartner’s position does not align with reality at all,” he said.

Cisco CCaaS has shown very strong growth and was a Gartner Peer Insight Customer Choice [provider] for 2025. This shows the disjointedness in Gartner research.

“While I don’t think they’re a leader yet, they have a very high level of execution capability and should be a Challenger or Visionary.”

Lastly, Kerravala stated his belief that Zoom should shift right, citing its vision for enterprise communications beyond CCaaS and UCaaS, alongside “very strong” channel feedback and its “tremendous growth up and down market.”

Delve into additional coverage of Magic Quadrant reports exploring adjacent technologies below:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI Platforms 2025
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) 2025

Amidst these market shifts, Twilio, Infobip, and Sinch stand firm as Gartner’s market Leaders.

However, Vonage has slipped out of the Leader quadrant, despite key differentiators in its network APIs, strong adjacent portfolio, and distinguished AI lab.

Vonage now sits in the Visionary square, alongside Cisco, Tanla, and newcomer Proximus Global, which merged last year with BICS, Telesign, and previous participant Route Mobile.

However, those are the only significant changes since 2024, with Tencent Cloud and Bandwidth remaining Challengers, while Tata Communications and Mitto still Niche Players.

Surprise omissions from the report include 8×8, GMS, and Syniverse. Meanwhile, tech giants like AWS and Microsoft ACS don’t feature.

The Definition of Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS)

A CPaaS platform comprises three “types” of technology: integrations, communication channels, and workflow orchestration.

The workflow orchestration allows companies to define processes that take signals from integrated systems and translate those into actions across communication channels.

As such, while many companies may use CPaaS platforms to embed communications into enterprise apps, such solutions have many other use cases.

For instance, CPaaS may support customer experiences by enabling proactive communications, two-factor authentication, and custom routing.

Ultimately, it’s a cloud toolkit for multimodal conversations, which is why it’s converging with many CCaaS, CDP, and UCaaS solutions, alongside other enterprise technologies.

While Gartner offers a different definition, that’s essentially what each participant in this year’s study does.

In its evaluation, the research firm analyzes 11 prominent CPaaS providers and divides them into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Here’s how they performed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant shape the market’s direction, with a compelling vision for CPaaS across use cases alongside a proven ability to drive business results. This year’s Leaders are:

• Twilio
• Infobip
• Sinch

Twilio

Twilio helped define the CPaaS market and has led it ever since. Indeed, its Communications portfolio continues to grow with global RCS, new authentication tools, and Conversational Relay.

Conversational Relay equips developers with tools to enable more natural voice interactions. It exemplifies how Twilio is merging CPaaS with conversational AI innovation.

Gartner isolates this as a strength, alongside its “rich developer ecosystem” and ability to combine data insights, AI, and omnichannel. As Twilio pulls its Communications and Segment businesses closer, that ability should continue to blossom.

Infobip

Infobip often attracts enterprises short on developers, with a solutions-focused go-to-market that allows it to sell results, not tricky terminology, like “CPaaS” itself.

Gartner also recognizes GenAI-enabled use cases and multimodal technologies as strengths, evident in the recent release of the Tencent Cloud Super App as a Service (TCSAS) solution.

Additional strengths Gartner highlights include its close customer relationships and responsive, “reliable” support teams.

Sinch

Sinch has a diverse CPaaS portfolio, including customer engagement applications, a developer API platform, and a “Super Network” for voice.

However, it bolsters all this with extensive direct support and a global partner base, which enables its customers to scale and realize ROI quickly.

Gartner lauds this, alongside Sinch’s “strong account management service” and “wide range of communication channels”, with the latter established via acquisitions and internal development.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant have developed a global footprint and reputations for delivering solutions that meet customer expectations across several specific use cases. They may, however, lack the vision and portfolio depth of Leaders. This year’s Challengers are:

• Tencent Cloud
• Bandwidth

Tencent Cloud

While most of its customers are pegged to China, Tencent Cloud earns plaudits for its channel strategy, which includes support for RCS in 15 countries.

Gartner also recognizes GenAI-enabled use cases and multimodal technologies as strengths, with the latter bolstered by the recent release of the Tencent Cloud Super App as a Service (TCSAS) solution.

However, alongside its limited geographic presence, Gartner warns that some customers have raised concerns around its pricing and technical support.

Bandwidth

In 2023, Bandwidth launched Maestro to blend leading CCaaS, UCaaS, and conversational AI solutions with its CPaaS stack to deliver deep, customized enterprise communications platforms.

Gartner recognized Bandwidth’s partnerships in these adjacent categories and Maestro’s orchestration engine as core strengths. The analyst also praised its network resiliency.

However, it warns that Bandwidth lacks advanced capabilities in video, commerce, and over-the-top (OTT) applications, limiting its suitability across several use cases.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant excel in their innovation, delivering differentiated solutions for specific customer segments. However, they may trail Leaders in their large customer support services and brand awareness. This year’s Visionaries are:

• Vonage
• Cisco
• Proximus Global
• Tanla

Vonage

Vonage differentiates via its 5G network APIs, supported by its parent company Ericsson, allowing developers to build more mobile communications solutions.

While Gartner doesn’t mention this, it praises Vonage’s vertical strategy, alongside its continued investment in innovation and regional technical support teams.

However, the analyst cites Vonage’s decision to scale back its activities in particular geographies as a significant concern for many customers, which could be why the vendor has lost its Leader status.

Cisco

Cisco moved into the CPaaS space in 2021, acquiring IMImobile. Since it has placed CPaaS at the back-end of its UCaaS and CCaaS solutions, delivering an advanced enterprise communications suite.

Gartner applauds these integrations, particularly between CPaaS and CCaaS, enabling greater cloud contact center customization, differentiated support experiences, and proactive customer service. It also commends Cisco’s vertical strategy and Visual Flow Builder.

However, the analyst also cited concerns that Cisco Webex Connect adoption is tied to North America and the UK. It’s also more focused on enterprises and “not tuned to developers or ISVs.”

Proximus Global

In December 2024, Proximus merged with BICS, Telesign, and Route Mobile to become Proximus Global, complete with a strong “global network backbone” and pooled capabilities.

Gartner isolates this unified, worldwide market approach as a strength, alongside its authentication capabilities and “developer-friendly community” that complements Route Mobile’s assets.

Yet, the research firm does warn that the merger of European, American, and Indian companies could cause shorter-term problems in managing systems, cultures, and pricing strategies.

Tanla

Tanla innovates quickly, with a broad portfolio crossing customer messaging, conversational commerce, and marketing automation. It’s also highly-regarded for its “user-friendly” interface.

Gartner didn’t highlight these advantages, but did note its partnerships with Google and Meta, AI-engagement tooling, and security solutions as key strengths.

Nevertheless, its limited presence beyond India and often drawn-out sales experience are among the cautions that the analyst raises.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche Players in the Magic Quadrant might offer capabilities ideal for specific customers. Nevertheless, several factors prevent them from competing for the biggest deals, such as portfolio depth, global support, and financial viability. This year’s Niche Players are:

• Tata Communications
• Mitto

Tata Communications

Tata Communications is a global services provider, allowing it to take a more consultative approach to enterprise CPaaS. Its portfolio also includes standout features, like number masking, video commerce, and voice marketing programs.

However, Gartner instead identifies its “programmable APIs for advanced use cases”, global coverage, and efforts to converge CCaaS and CPaaS as strengths.

Meanwhile, it cautions as to Tata’s muted presence in IT vendor marketplaces and “slow service and support”, citing verified customers on the latter.

Mitto

Given the absence of bigger CPaaS brands, Mitto is a surprise inclusion. Yet, Gartner justifies it by citing the vendor’s “networking, scalability, and cost-effectiveness”.

These strengths align with multinational brands that handle many engagements, as does its “differentiation lies in its proactively monitored AI-enabled intelligent routing.”

However, multinational brands will typically align with bigger-name brands, which is an issue with the analyst pointing to Mitto’s low market visibility.

For more rundowns of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports, check out our coverage of the:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) 2025
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024

While there are some movers and shakers, continuity is the ultimate winner.

Set against the backdrop of rapid AI advancement, that’s perhaps the biggest takeaway as ABI providers draw a breath and brace for market disruption.

Besides continuity, Alibaba may consider itself the winner, edging closer to the Leader quadrant. Meanwhile, Zoho and GoodData seem set to break free of the Niche Player category soon.

Google and Qlik have compounded their status as Leaders, with Microsoft staying at the market’s forefront.

Sisense is a notable slider, falling further into the Niche Player category despite being on the verge of the top-right quadrant just two years ago.

Sigma is the only new entrant in this year’s comprehensive report, with Omni possibly the most prominent BI provider not to feature in the report.

A Definition for Analytics and Business Intelligence (ABI) Platforms

Analytics and Business Intelligence platforms allow businesses to connect data streams and build models, dashboards, and visualizations around that data.

From there, brands can glean and share insights, spot pain points, and predict trends to enhance business operations.

Yet, as AI matures, the ABI space will shift. Users will soon want to ask questions in plain English and get a dashboard that didn’t exist five minutes previously, a dashboard where even the parameters weren’t defined in advance.

In this sense, the walls of traditional analytics platforms are disappearing.

Some ABI platform providers are more ready for this future than others. As such, vision is more critical than ever, as Gartner weighed its 20 participating vendors.

The analyst also assessed each participant’s ability to execute before sorting them into four groups: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Here’s how they performed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant demonstrate a “solid” understanding of critical product capabilities, proof of value, and a roadmap to cement their market leadership. They can also offer advanced analytics without necessitating extensive consultation and IT expertise. This year’s Leaders are:

• Microsoft
• Salesforce (Tableau)
• Google
• Qlik
• Oracle
• ThoughtSpot

Microsoft

Microsoft again leads the Magic Quadrant with its Power BI solution, with Gartner commending its “dominant” market presence.

The analyst also lauds Copilot for Power BI and how it boosts productivity within data and analytics (D&A) workflows, alongside the platform’s integration with Microsoft Fabric. That integration places the ABI platform at the heart of a deep D&A ecosystem.

Another strength not noted by Gartner is its Microsoft 365 integration, which helps democratize insight across the organization. Again, this underlines Power BI’s appeal to enterprises that have invested heavily in the Microsoft platform.

Salesforce (Tableau)

Salesforce wins plaudits for its data preparation tooling and automated insights, which aid users in analyzing data “more effectively”. The launch of Tableau Next should extend these capabilities.

Additionally, Gartner pinpoints flexibility, scalability, and a “strong user community” as core strengths, with users considered active partners in developing Tableau’s roadmap. The burgeoning community also ensures customers have access to a high availability of talent.

Beyond the Magic Quadrant analysis, observers typically hold Tableau in high regard for its data visualization capability, embedded BI, and generative AI (GenAI) functionality.

Google

Google excels in its platform governance and administration, controlling access to analytics content and allowing users to identify data sources via an API.

Gartner underscores this and applauds Google Looker’s “robust” open architecture, semantic layer, and “simplified” pricing model. The latter allows customers to upgrade as their modeling and analytics strategies evolve, making costs more predictable.

Surprisingly, Gartner doesn’t mention how the search giant’s significant investment in integrating Looker with BigQuery, Workspace, and Gemini bolsters its proposition.

Also noteworthy is how Google supports on-premise and cross-cloud deployments of Looker, unlike its fellow hyperscalers, namely AWS and Microsoft.

Qlik

Qlik demonstrates a track record for “renewed customer success”, with Gartner pointing toward its comparatively high customer satisfaction and retention ratings.

The analyst also trumpets Qlik’s “associative model differentiation” and cloud- and application-agnostic approach. That approach appeals to buyers with multi-cloud deployments covering a broad spectrum of enterprise apps.

Gartner doesn’t, however, highlight how Qlik has proven ahead of the curve in anticipating the commodification of BI platforms, making timely enhancements to its D&A workflow automation.

Oracle

The Oracle Analytics Cloud integrates closely with the tech giant’s Fusion Data Intelligence. That allows it to offer pre-packaged data analytics, integrations, and models for its horizontal apps, from finance to CRM.

Gartner praises this business application integration, alongside Oracle’s “market-leading” data preparation capability and AI enhancements. Many of those AI enhancements gear toward distributing automated insights and bolstering data storytelling.

While Oracle doesn’t push its offering outside its internal ecosystem, the Analytics Cloud is one of the most comprehensive solutions on the market and a robust option for those already utilizing its CRM and ERP solutions.

ThoughtSpot

ThoughtSpot autonomously spots anomalies in a dashboard, visualizes them, and gives users the tools to analyze them. That’s an excellent example of the “automated insights and natural language query capabilities” that Gartner isolates as a core strength.

The ability to embed ThoughtSpot’s BI functionality into apps and have analytics trigger actions within them is also a powerful capability bookmarked by Gartner. Meanwhile, the analyst also praises its “increasing market interest”.

Other strengths that Gartner didn’t spotlight include its broad cloud deployment options and full-stack data, analytics, and AI platform.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant enjoy strong market positioning, aided by a track record for delivering positive results across specific ABI use cases. However, they may trail leaders in coordinating products, innovation depth, and CX. This year’s Challengers are:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Alibaba Cloud
• Domo

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS draws praise for its “transparent pricing”, which starts at just $3 per user per month. Meanwhile, the report also commends its serverless architecture, which enhances scalability, and its integrated global cloud service.

The cloud juggernaut also has strengths in its augmented BI, serving up single-click machine learning models to non-technical users. Its natural language query and generation capabilities are also robust.

While Gartner didn’t note these strengths, it did highlight prospective cautions. Chief among these are its “confined deployment options”, as the solution sits best on the AWS cloud.

Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud is leaning into BI agents that build dashboards, analyze data, interpret data, make predictions, and diagnose issues. Such “AI and agentic enhancements” earn plaudits from Gartner.

Additionally, the analyst lauds its Quick BI platform’s accessibility, “flexible pricing”, and specialized features for Chinese users, including big screen visualizations and specialized workbooks for creating complex reports.

However, the report portrays its support services beyond the Asia/Pacific market, its integrations with non-Alibaba Cloud products, and its global community as limited.

Domo

Domo excels in its “data connection and preparation capabilities”, with advanced features to manage pipelines and 1,000+ connectors to prominent data systems. Gartner recognizes this while crediting Domo’s AI agent strategy and ability to embed BI features into various third-party apps and portals.

Other differentiators not noted in the study include Domo’s capacity-based pricing, role-based personalization, and longstanding reputation for delivering positive customer experiences.

Yet, according to Gartner, it trails market leaders as it’s still largely pegged to the US and Europe. The analyst also suggests that it has “limited natural language query” features.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant showcase a differentiated yet adept view of the ABI platforms of tomorrow, providing advanced functionality that aligns with their vision. Nevertheless, they may lack the scale, growth, and execution track record of market leaders. This year’s Visionaries are:

• Pyramid Analytics
• SAP
• Strategy
• SAS
• Tellius
• IBM

Pyramid Analytics

Pyramid Analytics presents an ABI platform with adaptive AI that takes user feedback, refines its responses, and – over time – delivers better outputs.

That’s a core strength of the platform, alongside its “accessible metrics layer” and “multipersona data prep experiences”, which provide four different experiences for prepping data for analytics.

However, according to Gartner, its constrained market reach and challenges regarding its learning experience are issues holding Pyramid back from achieving Leader status.

SAP

Like Oracle, SAP doesn’t promote its Analytics Cloud outside its ecosystem. Nevertheless, the ABI solution is a feature-rich option for its broader install base, for which SAP can deliver reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).

That’s according to Gartner, with the analyst praising the solution’s strong integration within the SAP ecosystem, alongside its “tailored industry applications” and “strong platform administration”.

However, its support for two of the three most prominent cloud architectures – Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure – is still on the roadmap. Meanwhile, Gartner claims that it lacks functional differentiation (somewhat ironic given its visionary status).

Strategy

Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, is a popular choice for larger enterprises working in hybrid environments that want to install embedded, connected BI capabilities.

Surprisingly, Gartner doesn’t note this strength, instead lauding its “composable analytics”, “analytics governance”, and “new branding”, with the latter offering it a chance to overcome perceptions of being a legacy vendor, per the analyst.

Across verified customer review sites, customers have – however – cautioned about the complexity of managing deployments. Yet, Gartner instead pokes holes in its “lack of surrounding data” and “application ecosystem”.

SAS

SAS isn’t best known for ABI, yet its Visual Analytics product fits well into its enterprise portfolio, with strong organization-wide reporting and forecasting capabilities.

Gartner notes this while praising SAS’s AI and agentic at the core approach, which includes conversational intelligence embedded across the analytics lifecycle. Yet, the provider pairs this AI-centric approach with a governance, privacy, and trust commitment that Gartner lauds.

In terms of cautions, the analyst highlights a “consistent pattern of price increases” alongside limited adoption. Nevertheless, the latter isn’t surprising, as SAS doesn’t lead with its ABI; it’s largely pulled through as an option as part of larger enterprise deals.

Tellius

“There’s no wrong way to ask. Data finally talks back.” As its promise suggests, Tellius differentiates through its natural language query capabilities, which Gartner describes as “strong”.

Per the report, other strengths include its automated insights, customer centricity, and sector-specific strategy, with the vendor excelling in industries like pharma and customer packaged goods.

It falls back in its market presence beyond North America, while Gartner also highlights product gaps, including API integrations for activities like publication workflows.

IBM

IBM earns credit in the Magic Quadrant for its “AI investments and vision”. Critically, the tech giant has built those investments on a rich semantic layer, ideal for GenAI-based capabilities.

Gartner also commends IBM for its “vertical industry strategy” and “robust and customizable enterprise reporting”, with the latter allowing users to customize report layouts for different stakeholders, internal and external.

A common concern with IBM is its overlapping products, like the Cognos Assistant and watsonx BI. Gartner overlooks this but warns of reduced market momentum.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche Players have built a market presence by excelling in a particular sector or use case, meeting the requirements of particular partners with a specific tech stack. Yet, deeper functionality is limited, as is their ability to match Leaders in performance. This year’s Niche Players are:

• Zoho
• GoodData
• Incorta
• Sigma
• Sisense

Zoho

Zoho builds its applications, from CRM and finance to supply chain, on a shared platform with its own infrastructure. That allows it to integrate insights across units and, as Gartner notes, deliver “low cost compared to value”.

Other strengths pinpointed by the analyst include its proficiency in data preparation, embedded analytics, and domain-specific analytics, with pre-configured analytics across its applications.

Nonetheless, Gartner does isolate several product gaps. For instance, the report notes how Zoho confines its natural language generation capabilities within a single view, which may restrict more detailed analytics.

GoodData

GoodData provides a universal semantic layer that maps raw data into logic and metrics. The latter can be authored across all business apps to ensure accuracy and trust in the analytics provided across the organization.

Gartner nods to this when applauding its “third-party interoperability” and “composability-first focus”. The analyst also commends GoodData’s “headless vision”.

However, as a Niche Player, product gaps remain a problem. One of the examples Gartner gives is that its key driver analysis and outlier detection “lack advanced functionalities”.

Incorta

Incorta typically scores highly on verified customer review sites for its simple user experience and intuitive interface. While Gartner doesn’t note this, it praises the provider for delivering “accelerated time to value”.

Alongside this, the analyst pinpoints its “live operational data with frequent updates” and “domain-specific” analytics as additional core strengths.

Nevertheless, Gartner lists Incorta’s limited augmented BI capabilities and rising competition from similar integrated ABI solutions among its cautions.

Sigma

Sigma offers a spreadsheet UI, which is popular with the midmarket, where many businesses are still transitioning off Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.

For Gartner, that’s a key point of differentiation, alongside Sigma’s performance, scalability, and embedded analytics.

However, the analyst worries about how it will compete as a comparatively new market entrant while warning about its “lack of enterprise cloud ecosystem”.

Sisense

Sisense has shifted its strategy to focus primarily on delivering embedded BI capabilities. That shift from thinking of “the platform” likely hurt its performance in this report. After all, Gartner is assessing the “ABI platform”.

Nevertheless, that pivot may not be a misstep as the market shifts. Instead, it could help Sisense differentiate.

Also, despite ranking Sisense lowly, Gartner does isolate strengths in Sisense’s “robust data preparation capabilities” and “deployment flexibility”.

Catch up on more CX-related Gartner Magic Quadrants here:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) 2025
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Voice of the Customer (VoC) Platforms 2025
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms 2025

However, a new entrant joins them: Sprinklr. It shoots into the top-right quadrant, alongside InMoment and Forsta.

Other vendors making a first appearance in the report include SMG and XEBO.ai. Both slot into the niche player quadrant.

There, the VoC providers have company. Indeed, Pisano, Concentrix, and Verint also sit in the bottom-left quadrant.

In 2024, Verint and Concentrix accepted challenger and visionary positions, respectively.

Alchemer, however, escapes the niche player category and places as a challenger this time around.

Alida has dropped out of the report altogether. Meanwhile, several prominent VoC players – including NICE and SurveyMonkey – don’t feature.

The Definition of a Voice of the Customer (VoC) Platform

A voice of the customer (VoC) platform gathers customer feedback from various sources, runs analysis, and converts it into actionable insights.

Most think of customer surveys here. Yet, modern platforms collect VoC data from customer interactions, social media, third-party review sites, and beyond.

Then, utilizing AI analytics, they’ll uncover hidden customer preferences, motivations, and objectives.

From there, a  VoC platform can guide customer-facing functions with recommended actions and prescriptive guidance.

CX leaders may also spread key insights to product teams, IT, and numerous other enterprise departments that may benefit.

Gartner highlights key platform features in its report. It then splits 12 VoC providers into the categories: leaders, challengers, visionaries, and niche players. Here’s how they performed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant pair “solid” business results with a vision they execute via a forward-thinking product strategy and deep support services. They can also demonstrate success across customer segments and industries. This year’s leaders are:

• Qualtrics
• Medallia
• Sprinklr
• Forsta
• InMoment

Qualtrics

Qualtrics wins plaudits from Gartner for its “robust product offering”, enabled by a rapid innovation cycle. Exemplifying this, the vendor unveiled new AI agents, market research capabilities, and an innovative Location Experience Hub during its Qualtrics X4 2025 event.

Gartner also pinpoints its “strong” sector focus and “good market responsiveness” as core strengths. Again, the agentic AI offerings Qualtrics has already brought to market exemplify the latter.

Yet, one other strength – which Gartner neglects to mention – is its commitment to original innovation. Qualtrics’ rage click detection and Text iQ functionality are excellent examples of this.

Medallia

Medallia also earns credit for its “robust” platform and focused AI capabilities. Its sophisticated cohort tracking feature is an excellent example. It lets customers develop dynamic segments based on attributes, behaviors, and experiences. Ultimately, that supports scalable personalization.

Additionally, Gartner commends Medallia’s “clear understanding of client needs” and “strong geographic strategy”.

However, the analyst overlooks several other key strengths, like its data consolidation expertise –  where it competes with CRM and CDP vendors to centralize customer interaction details. That allows Medallia to draw new insights from the VoC data it collects.

Moreover, Medallia has invested massively in converting insight into action. Consider its proactive tools for routing issues to the appropriate department, reaching out to a dissatisfied customer, and sharing coaching advice with reps. These are differentiative.

Sprinklr

In 2024, Sprinklr launched Sprinklr Surveys (now Sprinklr Customer Feedback Management), qualifying it for the Magic Quadrant. The solution joins an ecosystem that includes social media management, CCaaS, and conversational AI.

Sprinklr wants to – in the words of its new CEO, Rory Read – further “knit these solutions together” to provide differentiated innovation. As such, it’s a logical VoC choice for businesses already leveraging other elements of its portfolio.

While Gartner doesn’t recognize this ecosystem as a strength, it somewhat acknowledges this when applauding Sprinklr’s “well-designed” and “comprehensive” platform.

The analyst also underlines additional strengths, including its “strong sales-cycle support” and “robust training and customer community”.

Forsta

Forsta – under the name “Press Ganey Forsta” in the report – wins credit for its expertise in highly regulated industries. It exemplifies this in its sector-specific journey visualizations and templates, which simplify feature adoption.

Gartner also spotlights its “value-based sales strategy” and “good product enterprise support” as central strengths. Again, the latter exemplifies how Forsta is adept at solving complexity for its customers, with the ability to assign roles to specific users across hierarchies.

Other strengths not mentioned by Gartner are its visually compelling interface and differentiative features to solicit feedback from the frontline. The latter results from an acquisition strategy that has significantly boosted its market presence.

InMoment

In 2023, InMoment was the first VoC provider to pull generative AI into its platform. That innovation allowed customers to summarize groups of customer comments into concise overviews. Since then, it has rapidly expanded its AI-derived insight capabilities.

Gartner acknowledges this, lauding its “strong” ability to scour datasets – across numerous formats – to make predictions and recommend action.

Yet, it’s not just AI insight where InMoment proved quick to act. Indeed, it jumped on the agentic AI bandwagon early, releasing Active Listening Agents in October 2024.

While the analyst didn’t acknowledge this, it did commend the “short onboarding” experience that InMoment offers, alongside its “robust geographic strategy”.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant have the adequate size, platform depth, and support system to compete globally and across verticals. However, they lack the “compelling vision” of leaders for the VoC market of tomorrow. This year’s challengers are:

• Alchemer

Alchemer

Alchemer draws praise for offering “free proofs of concept (POCs)”, which it supports with a solution engineer to offer a “full experience” of the solution. Gartner also commends its “strong customer success management” and “easy-to-use” platform.

Another core strength that Gartner doesn’t note is in mobile app feedback capabilities, which it gained after acquiring Appentive in 2023. These are differentiative.

Nevertheless, the vendor lags due to its “lack of robust partner ecosystem” and “limited analytics and AI”. Although, in fairness to Alchemer, its collaboration with Chattermill has bolstered the latter with advanced text mining capabilities.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant deliver “potentially market-changing” innovations via their VoC platforms, which may shape the space’s future. Yet, they trail leaders in their track record for execution, size, and/or platform depth. This year’s challengers are:

• There are no visionaries in this year’s Magic Quadrant

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche players in the Magic Quadrant may compete with leaders in a particular industry or geography. Nevertheless, size, geography, and overall product limitations limit their ability to execute on a broader scale. This year’s niche players are:

• Verint
• Concentrix
• Pisano
• SMG
• QuestionPro
• XEBO.ai

Verint

Verint draws praise for its “customer-service-driven CX”, with Gartner pointing to its portfolio of adjacent technologies. Those include its adjacent data hub, workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions, and conversational AI.

In many cases, it combines VoC with these applications to influence underlying customer service processes and agent experiences. For instance, a social post indicating negative sentiment could trigger an outbound, AI-led engagement. However, the possibilities extend further.

Gartner also applauds Verint’s “unique customer effort detection” and “strong data ingestion and mapping capabilities”. Yet, the analyst cautions against the vendor’s “limited customer journey analytics” and – as in 2024 – its “challenging user interface”.

Concentrix

Despite slipping into the niche player quadrant, Concentrix earns credit for its “effective marketing execution” and “strong overall viability”. Meanwhile, Gartner also mentions its “industry strategy” as a strength that helps shorten time to value.

Surprisingly, Gartner skips past Concentrix’s support services. Thanks to its BPO background, these transcend industry norms, with in-house teams running VoC programs for customers. Its hybrid mining capability is also a notable strength that goes unrecognized.

However, Garner warns that Concentrix lacks a “robust partner ecosystem” and cautions about its “limited marketing strategy”. Although, the latter is somewhat of a contradiction to its “effective marketing execution” strength noted earlier in the report.

Pisano

Pisano may lack brand recognition, but it makes up for this with “strong customer retention”, arranging intimate events to connect customers and build relationships. Its platform is also “easy to use” and features a “helpful AI assistant”, which Gartner tags as central strengths.

Another that flies under the radar is its low pricing. Across the VoC cycle of data gathering, analyzing, and actioning, Pisano comes at a lower cost than most other vendors in the Magic Quadrant – especially for its core data collection functionalities.

Yet, while its price point may be low, Gartner points to “lagging innovation” as a concern, alongside its lack of “strong professional services” and “no hands-on POCs”.

SMG

SMG draws acclaim for its “strong digital capability”, which links online customer experience feedback to product adoption. The study also lauds its “effective voice of the employee capability” and “good market understanding and execution”.

Its advanced mobile app, benchmarking tool, and intuitive report-building functionality are additional strengths that Gartner overlooks in the study.

The analyst does, however, caution as to SMG’s “limited direct sales strategy” and “services-heavy model”, which can hamper speed to deployment and agility thereafter.

QuestionPro

Like Pisano, QuestionPro stands out for its “low-cost solution”. Its “go-to-market strategy” that targets small and medium-sized enterprises and “simplified product for early-stage CX” also won Gartner’s approval.

Another possible strength the analyst could have noted is QuestionPro’s focus on matching feedback to specific customer touchpoints, so customers can monitor the moments that matter most.

In terms of critique, Gartner warns of “limited AI capabilities” and “limited large-enterprise support” – although, as QuestionPro targets the lower end of the market, these snags are understandable.

XEBO.ai

New entrant XEBO.ai is a surprise addition to the Magic Quadrant, ahead of much more established VoC players, with deeper offerings.

Nevertheless, Gartner validates its pick by pointing to its “support for indirect customer feedback”, praising the provider’s social listening capabilities. The analyst also applauds XEBO.ai for its “effective sales strategy” and “available international support”.

However, despite a “compelling roadmap”, Gartner warns of limited innovation and believes XEBO.ai could do more to inspire continuous community engagement.

For further Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, read the rundowns:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms 2025

Yet, this year, they face new competition in the leader quadrant.

Indeed, after launching Content Hub just 12 months ago, HubSpot storms into the top-right quadrant.

It’s joined by Sprinklr and Adobe, with the latter achieving leader status after placing as a challenger in 2024’s edition.

Other significant shifts in the Magic Quadrant include Skyword and Sitecore losing their leader status, slipping to become a challenger and visionary, respectively.

Meanwhile, Acquia dropped out of the study completely. Last year’s “challenger” failed to qualify this time around, with Gartner citing missing content strategy, editorial planning, and calendarization capabilities.

2025 entrant Lytho takes its place in the challenger quadrant.

Meanwhile, Contentstack, Contentful, and Amplience remain surprise omissions.

The Definition of a Content Marketing Platform

A content marketing platform comprises solutions for content planning, design, and optimization, with workflows for end-to-end content production.

A CMP incorporates many types of content. Think e-books and whitepapers, graphics, videos, interactive assets, etc.

The best content management platforms help businesses to run a thread through these assets, allowing them to tell connected stories and monitor performance.

In doing so, CMPs help brands bolster engagement, drive awareness, and – ultimately – boost demand in what they sell.

This year, features like generative AI (GenAI) content creation, AI-assisted workflows, and marketplaces for content sourcing have come to the fore.

Gartner now highlights these as “common” features, amongst many others in its report.

From there, the analyst splits 11 CMP providers into four groups: leaders, challengers, visionaries, and niche players. Here’s how they performed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant have established a global base of generally satisfied customers, provide comprehensive CMP solutions, and demonstrate a “progressive” roadmap. This year’s leaders are:

• Optimizely
• Storyteq
• HubSpot
• Sprinklr
• Adobe

Optimizely

Optimizely earns plaudits for its “innovative product strategy” in the Magic Quadrant report, with Gartner pointing to its network of AI agents that automate the “entire” content lifecycle.

Yet, other excellent examples of this strategy – which Gartner omits – include its advanced content optimization tools, an advanced visual editing capability, and collaboration features. The latter allows Optimizely to take content planning outside the CMP and into Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Elsewhere, Gartner pinpoints “market responsiveness” and “full-service content strategy” as additional core strengths for Optimizely.

Storyteq

Storyteq excels in data management, integrating insights to inform campaign goals and content initiatives. Recent innovations include a knowledge graph and data mesh to bolster this differentiator.

Gartner somewhat alludes to this in the study when praising Storyteq’s “product strategy”, citing how Storyteq leverages data to power the platform’s embedded AI.

The analyst also commends the vendor’s “AI innovation” – including its GenAI-driven “infinite” content engine – and overall “product sophistication”

HubSpot

HubSpot has hit the ground running, entering the Magic Quadrant as a leader, despite only launching Content Hub in 2024.

The CMP leverages the power of HubSpot’s Smart CRM ecosystem to streamline content channels, workflows, and delivery. Gartner also notes how the broader ecosystem enables access to more customer data, which allows content managers to better track campaign performance.

Additionally, the research firm notes how HubSpot’s “market responsiveness” and “marketing strategy,” which focuses on replacing integrated point solutions, are significant pluses.

Sprinklr

Sprinklr supports the likes of Microsoft, Telefónica, and Uber with its leading social media management suite. It pulls on these strengths with its CMP.

That’s key to the “product strategy” strength that Gartner emphasizes, as it cites features like social scheduling, listening, and paid media capabilities. These underline how Sprinklr effectively leverages its broader portfolio.

Gartner also gives plaudits to Sprinklr’s “market responsiveness” and “overall viability”, citing its “solid” customer retention, despite organizational changes and the appointment of a new CEO.

Adobe

Adobe is at the forefront of innovation in the CMP space, with Gartner highlighting its “market vision” as a key strength.

That vision involves transitioning the conventional single-product CMP toward more of an ecosystem. Key innovations here that Gartner doesn’t note include its conversational agent-like interface and integrated GenAI-powered content analytics

Adobe also boasts a FedRAMP certification that Gartner neglects to mention, which is a major consideration for not just the public sector, but all security and compliance-cautious enterprises.

The analyst does, however, underscore Adobe’s “global partner network” and “corporate viability”.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant offer mature capabilities across the content lifecycle, which they leverage to meet complex customer requirements. However, they may lack the vision and innovation pace of market rivals. This year’s challengers are:

• Skyword
• Lytho

Skyword

Skyword loses its place as a market leader in this year’s CMP Magic Quadrant. However, it still wins praise for its “customer experience” and “marketing execution”.

The vendor also remains adept at target verticals, delivering custom solutions and establishing a base of “easy access” content creators with niche expertise.

Nevertheless, Gartner frets that this vertical specialism has hampered its broader market understanding and cautions as to the vendor’s “product strategy”.

Lytho

The second new entry to this Magic Quadrant – after HubSpot – is Lytho.

Like Skyword, it earns commendation for its “customer experience”, with Gartner citing the ease in talking with human support teams, short sales cycle, and ease of implementation.

Gartner also pinpoints “market understanding” and “business model” – recently bolstered by the acquisition of DivvyHQ – as strengths.

However, the analyst stresses that an “innovation gap” remains, spotlighting its lack of GenAI innovation as a key example.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant demonstrate a thoughtful vision for the future of CMPs. As Gartner puts it, they can “see around the corners to know what is coming next.” However, they typically trail leaders in feature depth and ability to execute. This year’s visionary is:

Sitecore

As with Skyword, Sitecore has lost its leader spot in this year’s Magic Quadrant.

Nonetheless, it still has a big differentiator in its “composable business model”, with a library of powerful add-ons and product configurations to elevate content strategies.

Gartner also applauds Sitecore’s “overall viability” and “market understanding”, touting its use of GenAI to deliver “scalable personalization”.

So, why did it lose ground? The analyst cites the tiered “customer support” system as a critical reason, alongside the amount of technical knowledge required to maximize the platform’s success.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche players in the Magic Quadrant satisfy the CMP criteria and can point to numerous successful deployments. Yet, mixed customer reviews of viability and innovations have hindered their performance in this report. This year’s niche players are:

• CoSchedule
• Upland
• Contently

CoSchedule

CoSchedule hopped on the GenAI bandwagon early, providing proactive customer support that many customers crave when experimenting with new technologies.

Gartner didn’t note this, but praised the vendor’s “calendar capability”, “market responsiveness”, and “marketing execution”. Its library of free entry-level tools is an excellent example of the latter.

Nevertheless, the analyst warns of “limited dashboard capabilities” and “overall viability”, noting the CosSchedule’s slowing growth.

Upland

Upland provides an entire team to support implementations while offering ongoing solutions consulting led by a project manager. That underscores the company’s commitment to customer experience.

Gartner recognizes this, alongside other strengths in its “product strategy” and “market responsiveness”.

Nevertheless, the research firm cautions as to Upland’s “product UX” and “AI innovation” – noting that the vendor has only made one GenAI feature release.

Contently

Contently slips further into the Niche Player category in 2025, despite continued strengths in its “customer experience” and “vertical strategy”.

The vendor also works closely with customers to inform its innovation strategy, helping enterprises overcome their most pressing problems.

However, Gartner cautions about its 2024 acquisition by Zax Capital, due to the lack of clarity it has brought around the vendor’s go-forward plans. Its market understanding and responsiveness are also listed as concerns.

For more Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, check out the following articles:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms 2025: The Rundown
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024: The Rundown
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises 2024: The Rundown

Again, they are joined by Acquia in an unchanged leader quadrant. 

However, there are some significant shifts in the visionary quadrant, with Contentstack and Uniform joining Sitecore and Magnolia.

That marks an impressive first showing from the former two vendors, which are new to the Magic Quadrant.

Joining them as new entrants are Builder.io, Contentful, and Pimcore. Each of these vendors sits in the niche player square.  

Meanwhile, OpenText and HCLSoftware maintained their spots as challengers. 

Finally, Gartner did not include Bloomreach and Crownpeak this year. In the 2024 edition, the vendors secured visionary and niche player spots, respectively.

However, they do not feature this time around as Bloomreach no longer goes to market as a DXP, and Crownpeak failed to meet the revenue growth criteria.

The Definition of a Digital Experience Platform

A digital experience platform (DXP) comprises technologies to help design, manage, and deliver digital customer experiences.

Core applications within a DXP include journey orchestration, assembly, and management solutions, which fit within a composable architecture that allows for API-first approaches. 

Other key features include cloud deployment versatility, content management, and account services. Gartner shares more on these – and several other common capabilities in its report.

The analyst then goes on to split the 16 DXP providers into four categories: leaders, challengers, visionaries, and niche players. Here’s how they performed.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant support various DXP use cases, consistently meet customers’ needs, and offer a compelling vision for the future of the technology. This year’s leaders include: 

• Optimizely
• Adobe 
• Acquia 

Optimizely

Optimizely pairs a deep feature set with a library of specialist tools. Underneath is a highly composable architecture that allows users to mix and match these first- and third-party solutions to orchestrate their desired experiences. Recognizing this, Gartner lauds the vendor’s “platform breadth and modularity”. In the report, the analyst also commends its “pricing and packaging” alongside its “global momentum and growth”.

Adobe

Adobe received plaudits for its “brand awareness” and “partner support”, with the latter featuring many design and creative agencies, systems integrators (SIs), and marketing agencies. That ecosystem enables customers greater choice of DX partners. Gartner also notes “innovation” as a core strength, which was on full show during Adobe Max 2024, where the tech giant underlined its non-destructive approach to AI and much more. 

Acquia

The Acquia Digital Experience Platform stands out for its “open-source community”, which offers 50,000 plug-ins and 1,000 distributions to drive innovation and original customer experiences. Gartner recognizes this, alongside the vendor’s “centralized development environment” and “AI integration”, with the Drupal developer code assistant exemplifying the latter by helping developers complete various tasks across the platform.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant have a greater install base than Niche Players and Visionaries, successfully meeting current customer demands. However, their vision for the future of the DXP space trails market leaders. This year’s challengers are: 

• OpenText 
• HCL Software

OpenText

OpenText gained challenger status chiefly through its robust “authenticated experiences”, which the vendor continues to develop as a differentiator that appeals to organizations in highly regulated industries. It also draws acclaim for its “product development” and “beyond DXP” strategy, which sees the vendor blur the lines with IT service management (ITSM). Unfortunately, OpenText lags due to its “complex UO” and “platform complexity”.

HCL Software

HCL Software targets large organizations with strict data protection, compliance, and security needs. Its strengths in “governance and compliance” and substantial “market presence” align well with this focus. Gartner also commends the vendor for its “analytics and intelligence” features, delivered through HCL Discover. However, some customers have reported “longer-than-expected implementation cycles”.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant are forward-thinking vendors adept at anticipating emerging customer needs and the potential impact of new technologies. Yet, they may lag in their platform depth or execution track record. This year’s visionaries are:

• Sitecore 
• Magnolia
• Contentstack
• Uniform 

Sitecore

Sitecore couples two key strengths: “innovation” and “composable DXP”. In doing so, it pairs rapid product development with a fast-growing marketplace, broadening its reach across the DXP space. Alongside this, Gartner lauds its high “B2B appeal”, stemming from its prowess in enabling authenticated, secure experiences. Nevertheless, Sitecore customers note sticking points in their cloud transitions, per the analyst.

Magnolia

Magnolia differentiates with its composable underbelly, which offers integration frameworks that allow brands to orchestrate industry-specific customer journeys, faster. Gartner gives this approach plaudits, alongside the vendor’s for “AI innovation” and “pricing structure”, which is described as “clear and easy”. Limited SaaS options, compared to its self-hosted DXP, is – however – an area of caution.

Contentstack

Contentstack differentiates with its “front-end hosting”. According to Gartner, by offering this natively – with back-end hosting – as part of a unified offering, the vendor can attract buyers that like to bundle. In addition, Gartner pinpoints “personalization” and “customer service” as cornerstone strengths. Nevertheless, its “pricing” is a concern, which restricts its business largely to enterprises.

Uniform

Like Contentstack, Uniform blazes into the visionary quadrant on its first attempt. Gartner credits its “composable flexibility”, “developer-friendly” proposition, and “AI innovation” for its impressive first appearance. That AI innovation includes AI agents that help create content and design experiences. Yet, the vendor’s limited “CMS (content management system) maturity” and “non-native capabilities” and prominent detractors.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Niche players in the Magic Quadrant find success by focusing on specific industries, company sizes, and geographic segments. Nonetheless, their broader capabilities, execution, and vision lag behind leaders. This year’s niche players are:

• Liferay 
• Progress
• Kentico
• CoreMedia
• Contentful
• Builder.io
• Squiz
• Primcore 

Liferay

Liferay wins plaudits for its “low code” development approach and “AI integration”. However, a significant percentage of its install base still leverages the vendor’s on-premise offering, signaling issues in its SaaS strategy. 

Progress

Progress impresses with its “technology stack”, delivering out-of-the-box solutions with a high level of customizability. Gartner commends this, alongside its “customer data management” feature set. Yet, the analyst tags “cloud strategy” and its “developer-focused legacy” as cautions.

Kentico

Kentico has its eye firmly on midsize organizations with its “all-in-one” DXP that draws plaudits from Gartner for its “platform vision” and “strong growth”. However, the analyst stresses that its re-platforming focus may have stalled its innovation. 

CoreMedia

With a healthy presence in the retail and communications sectors, CoreMedia has strengths in its “customer journey management” solutions and AI “blueprints”, which help extend the platform. Nevertheless, Gartner cited concerns about its complex back-office UI and limited vendor resources outside of Europe. 

Contentful

As it has transitioned from a CMS to a fully-fledged composable DXP, Contentful has achieved significant “brand awareness”. That’s a key strength, alongside its “composable, headless architecture”. However, recent “organizational changes” signal growing pains.

Builder.io

Builder.io is one of the youngest vendors in the Quadrant. With a fresh perspective, it has paved the way for “easy design functionality”, a “flexible layout”, and a cost-effect “price structure”. Yet, Gartner warns that the company – as a startup – faces an “uncertain future”.

Squiz

Establishing an install base in government, energy and utilities, and education, Squiz can demonstrate high “sector expertise”. That’s a key strength, alongside its “licensing flexibility”. Unfortunately, the report cites its “innovation pace” as a caution. 

Pimcore

Pimcore’s open-source heritage aligns well with its “developer flexibility” strength, which has helped it establish a considerable European presence in the retail and marketing sectors. Outside of Europe, however, it has a “limited geographic reach”, as per Gartner. 

For more Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, check out the following articles:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Services 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms 2024

In the top-right quadrant, it’s joined by Accenture, Dentsu, and Publicis Sapient.

Meanwhile, IBM and Capgemini are knocking on the leader quadrant’s door as a challenger and visionary, respectively.

However, there are many more participants, including the likes of HCLTech, Infosys, and Wipro, across a stacked Magic Quadrant of 16 service providers.

The Definition of Digital Experience Services

Whether a customer is buying a product online, navigating a mobile app, or receiving proactive alerts, they are on a digital experience (DX).

A DX services provider helps to design, test, implement, optimize, and manage those digital experiences.

However, they don’t only focus on customers. The providers in this Magic Quadrant consider digital experiences for employees and partners, too.

In doing so, they offer services such as experience design, solution implementation, and optimization. They may also offer creative, content, and marketing services.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant offer a strong track record across DX services while demonstrating an acute understanding of where the market is heading. This year’s leaders are:

• Deloitte
• Accenture
• Dentsu
• Publicis Sapient

Deloitte

Deloitte earns plaudits in the report for its “creative agency approach” to digital design, creating programs that include various perspectives, from strategists to creatives. An excellent case study here is of its work with Jackson Family Wines, where it helped develop a distinct digital identity for 40 of its unique brands. Other strengths include its “comprehensive end-to-end DX capabilities” and “seamless transformational delivery”.

Accenture

Accenture provides “end-to-end” DX services, crossing sales, service, marketing, and commerce. As such, they can offer adept services to support a company-wide digital experience transformation program, which may also span continents. Gartner recognizes this while also crediting the provider for its “specialized and local capabilities” and its “broad portfolio of client-deployable assets IP”.

Dentsu

Dentsu follows its “good innovation” philosophy, striving to help clients seize new value opportunities that support the broader organization and society. In doing so, it has become a “thought leader in delivering business outcomes”, according to Gartner. The analyst also commends Dentsut for its “comprehensive DX offerings” and “expansive portfolio of proprietary DX tools”.

Publicis Sapient

Publicis Sapient has pushed itself to the forefront of the DX services market over recent years, with its stock up 150+ percent since 2020. Key to that success is its “large-scale industry experience”, with the provider offering customizable solutions across various verticals, with Gartner spotlighting its retail, media, and public sector specialisms. The analyst also lauds Publicis Sapient’s “end-to-end, experience-led delivery” alongside its acquisition strategy.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant differentiate through execution, especially across their preferred segments of CX. However, their understanding of the market’s evolution seemingly trails those in the leader quadrant. This year’s challengers are:

• HCLTech
• IBM
• Infosys

HCLTech

HCLTech stands out for its tech consulting and engineering expertise. Recently, this came to the fore in a milestone deal with Microsoft, where the tech giant trusted HCLTech to take over its Nuance Enterprise Professional Services business. Alongside this tech focus, Gartner acknowledged HCLTech’s “product-aligned operating model” and “robust ecosystem capabilities. Yet, the analyst cautioned toward its limited creative and marketing services.

IBM

IBM is one of the most recognizable names in enterprise tech, with a 100+ year history and around 245,000 employees. Those foundations have enabled the company to develop a “strong partner ecosystem”. Gartner recognizes this while also applauding its “agency and asset-led approach” and deep domain expertise”. Nevertheless, as with HCLTech, the analyst highlights marketing services as a primary caution.

Infosys

Unlike its fellow challengers, Inosys excels in its services for marketing teams. Indeed, Gartner praises the digital services provider for its “CMO-aligned suite of offerings” and “BPM services for marketing operations”. It also notes the provider’s acquisition nouse as a key strength. However, the analyst notes “inconsistent or siloed delivery” as a concern, which is ironically a consequence of its acquisition strategy that Gartner earlier lauded.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant present a compelling view of the digital services of tomorrow and a well-aligned go-forward strategy. However, they’re yet to demonstrate an execution streak that pairs with that vision. This year’s visionaries are:

• Capgemini
• EPAM
• VML

Capgemini

Capgemini is one of Europe’s largest employers, with 340,000+ staff.  Many of these employees are part of the “end-to-end transformation advisory” that Gartner commends in its study. The analyst also notes Capgemini’s “growing capability in marketing operations” and “innovative commercial models” as core strengths. Nevertheless, the provider lags behind leaders primarily because of “inconsistencies in service orchestration.”

EPAM

EPAM supports just under 300 of the Forbes Global 2000 and is growing its agency capability to offer more content, creative, and marketing capabilities to its esteemed clientele. Gartner highlights this as a strength, alongside EPAM’s “good UI development engineering skills” and “AI-driven transformation for DX services”. However, its “reliance on central and eastern European resources” is a worry that – upon the Ukraine invasion – came under the microscope.

VML

VML offers a “solid marketing understanding” that it underpins with growing technical capabilities, as per Gartner. The analyst also cites strengths in its “full range of end-to-end digital growth services and delivery” and “strong Shopify and SAP expertise”. Nevertheless, its expertise could perhaps be better spread, with Gartner noting that VML has more full-time staff dedicated to Adobe than employees focused on all other ecosystems combined.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche Players in the Magic Quadrant have established a global presence and often excel in a specific digital experience service. However, they trail on their ability to execute across all use cases and in their vision. This year’s niche players are:

• NTT DATA
• Wipro
• Cognizant
• Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
• LTIMindtree

NTT DATA

NTT DATA wins plaudits for its “breadth of technology orchestration” and “service-centric industries focus”. Yet, Gartner notes that the provider is better at delivering widescale DX programs as opposed to one-off projects.

Wipro

Wipro commits approximately 46,000 staff to the DX market. Gartner cites that dedication and the provider’s strong cross-platform technical skills as strengths. Nevertheless, it cautions to Wipro’s limited creative capabilities.

Cognizant

Cognizant Moment is the provider’s new DX practice, which receives acclaim for its “strong implementation expertise” and “commitment to business outcomes”. Nonetheless, Cognizant lags in its “limited brand strategy”, while Gartner questions its “advisory expertise”.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Tata has developed innovative solutions suites, like its comms platform that combines CCaaS and CPaaS. As such, it’s little surprise that Gartner commends its “strong B2B and indirect customer offering”. Yet, the analyst highlights its “lagging” agency capabilities as a concern.

LTIMindtree

LTIMindtree is adept at turning a clear DX vision into a reality. Gartner notes this and lauds its design focus and “product alignment with market trends”. However, the analyst cautions to LTIMindtree’s “limited geographic coverage” and emerging “ad and media practice”.

For more Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, check out the following articles:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024

However, its Fusion Cloud offering was not alone. Esteemed vendors such as Microsoft, Infor, SAP S/4 HANA Cloud, and Epicor Software also made it into the top-right section of the quadrant. 

Interestingly, SAP and Oracle have multiple products in the quadrant, with SAP Business ByDesign highlighted as a niche player and Oracle NetSuite highlighted as a challenger. 

QAD missed out this year, as it did not meet all of the inclusion criteria outlined in the complete report.

No vendors were added to the Magic Quadrant this year.

The Definition of an ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises

A cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) for product-centric enterprises enables the support and automation of various operational activities across manufacturing and distribution sectors. 

In doing so, it becomes the cornerstone of a business, touching HR, manufacturing, supply chain, customer-facing teams, etc.

Vendors delivering a cloud ERP for product-centric enterprises are responsible for delivering infrastructure, application, and ongoing management support.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Magic Quadrant leaders demonstrate a market-defining vision of how the cloud can support and improve ERP product-centric systems and processes can be supported and improved. This year’s leaders are: 

• Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
• Microsoft
• Infor
• SAP S/4 HANA Cloud Public Edition
• Epicor Software

Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP

The Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP targets large enterprises. Gartner highlighted its “breadth of capabilities” as a core strength. This is evident in its recent innovation streak, which includes various GenAI use cases, an ESG ledger, and a Smart Operations workbench for retailers. Other key strengths are its “complex corporate capabilities coverage” and “sustainability offering”. 

Microsoft

Joining Oracle as a leader, Microsoft receives plaudits for its robust Dynamics 365 platform strategy by Gartner. Indeed, it provides specialized solution development tools, leveraging capabilities from its broader ecosystem. The analyst also cites its AI strategy as a strength, with Copilot Studio evolving into a hub for AI agents. These agents’ potential to simplify the migration of highly customized on-premise environments may prove hugely significant in the ERP space. 

SAP 4/S HANA Cloud Public Edition

According to Gartner, SAP stands out for its innovation roadmap. Joule – its virtual assistant – will play a big role here, but the analyst also touts advanced, industry-specific product-centric capabilities, like predictive replenishment in retail. Gartner also commends SAP for its “comprehensive capabilities” and “partner ecosystem”. 

Infor

Gartner cites Infor’s “deep industry vertical focus” as a core strength, with the vendor demonstrating its expertise across manufacturing and distribution industries. That’s evident in its tech and “augmented technical services”, which Gartner also singles out for praise. Finally, Infor gains credit for its “advanced workspaces,” which are role-based to increase productivity and improve decision-making. 

Epicore Software

Every ERP is data-driven. However, Epicore’s approach to building operational data models is helping brands combat many of their most significant ERP-related challenges. These include maintaining records, data security, and managing data retention periods. Alongside this data prowess, Gartner commends Epicore Software for its “robust midsize offering” and “embedded integration platform as a service (iPaaS)” that allows brands to connect systems with little coding. 

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant have a greater market presence than Niche Players and Visionaries. However, they do not have a broad enough vision to execute consistently across the wider market. This year’s challengers are: 

• Oracle NetSuite

Oracle’s NetSuite

Oracle NetSuite gained challenger status chiefly through its robust “infrastructure and services”, which Oracle continues to improve with various iPaaS resources and AI that meet the needs of midsize enterprises. Gartner also credits Oracle for its “ESG capabilities” and “36o dashboards”.  Nevertheless, the analyst notes that Big Red can bolster its manufacturing functionality tailored toward highly complex organizations. 

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries understand how the cloud is changing ERP applications with innovative technology and functionalities. However, they are limited in terms of execution or track record (or both). This year’s visionaries are:

• IFS

IFS

IFS differentiates with its industry focus, offering a set of core features that businesses can augment with additional first and third party capabilities. Its composability strategy aligns particularly well with this, Gartner notes. Yet, its “modular licensing” can improve to better support the approach, so customers can better manage their expenditures. 

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche Players may have success in targeting industry segments or company sizes with deeper functionality than other competitors do. Yet, overall, they lack the execution and vision of market leaders. This year’s niche players are:  

• SAP Business ByDesign
• Priority Software
• Plex, by Rockwell Automation

SAP Business ByDesign

SAP Business ByDesign is aimed at lower-midsize organizations. As Gartner gears its Magic Quadrant towards larger enterprises, this overarching aim likely hindered its performance. Nevertheless, the analyst notes its drive for the midsize enterprise market – and its understanding of that market – as a strength. However, it cautions as to the platform’s “portfolio position and future roadmap”. 

Priority Software

Like BusinessByDesign, Priority Software goes after smaller, cost-conscious manufacturing customers, chiefly in EMEA. Aligning with this aim, the vendor stands out for its short “implementation lead timeline” and its native warehouse management features for “loading and unloading control”. Gartner notes support documentation and “AI and sustainability” as key cautions. 

Plex, by Rockwell Automation

Like its fellow niche players, Rockwell Automation puts forward a “midsize offering” paired with high expertise across this market segment. Its feature plans for embedded Microsoft Teams and extended IoT capabilities for devices are also notable. Yet, Gartner cautions to its “geographically dispersed adoption” and “customer support”. 

A Final Takeaway from the Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises Magic Quadrant

Regular readers of the Gartner Magic Quadrant reports will be familiar with the industry trend analysis that coincides with the research. 

Perhaps the most interesting statistic in the 2024 Quadrant for Product-Centric Enterprises is that: 

By 2027, 60 percent of customers replacing ERP applications will select software for the platform and business process orchestration capabilities as critical requirements, along with transactional capabilities, in order to deliver more tailored outcomes.

The demand for orchestration will come as more brands implement agentic AI to learn more about these processes and – ultimately – automate them. Look out for this as a key industry trend over the coming years.

For more Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, check out the following articles:

• • Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Service-Centric Enterprises 2024
  • Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms 2024
  • Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024

However, Oracle is not alone as a Magic Quadrant leader. It’s joined by Workday, SAP (S/4HANA Cloud), and – in a change from the 2023 edition – Microsoft (Dynamics 365).

That is the only significant shift in positioning, with no other vendors switching quadrants from last year.

Interestingly, many vendors have multiple products included in the study. Indeed, Oracle (NetSuite) sits in the challenger square. Meanwhile, Microsoft (Business Central) and SAP (Business ByDesign) are niche players.

Sage and Certina also feature as niche players, pegged to the bottom-left of the Magic Quadrant matrix.

Gartner has added no new vendors to its 2024 report.

The Definition of a Cloud ERP for Service-Centric Enterprises

An ERP system is a platform that comprises solutions for managing business-wide processes.

As such, it acts as the central source of truth across various functions, including customer-facing teams, HR, manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, etc.

The ERP systems featured in the Gartner Magic Quadrant are cloud-based, and the analyst evaluates their ability to serve businesses that primarily offer services, not products.

In doing so, these ERP systems offer various financial, human capital management (HCM), and administrative functionalities – alongside integrations, automation tools, and analytics.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant demonstrate a pioneering vision of how the cloud can support and improve service-centric ERP systems and processes. This year’s leaders are:

• Oracle (Fusion Cloud ERP)
• Workday
• SAP (S/4HANA Cloud)
• Microsoft (Dynamics 365)

Oracle (Fusion Cloud ERP)

Gartner commended Oracle for the maturity of its core functions for service-centric enterprises. Among others, these included cloud financial, people, project, and third-party resource management. “Big Red” also earned praise for its robust application and data integration capabilities alongside its embedded AI.

Workday

Workday wins plaudits for its “unified data core” that supports the AI features embedded into its platform. Gartner also praises the platform’s affinity with the broader Workday stack, including its Human Capital Management (HCM), configure-price-quote (CPQ), and financial management system (FMS) solutions.

SAP (S/4HANA Cloud)

Like Workday, SAP earns acclaim for how S/4HANA Cloud fits into its broader portfolio. Additionally, Gartner lauds the global support network that SAP wraps around the platform alongside its embedded AI features. That now includes agentic AI, with the tech giant rapidly building out Joule, its copilot turned AI Agent hub.

Microsoft (Dynamics 365)

Microsoft wins praise for how its Dynamics 365 platform has embedded GenAI with Copilot. Now, with Copilot Studio, the ability for enterprises to build their AI agents for the ERP is massive, as it may allow them to recreate much of their on-premise customizations in the cloud. Gartner also credits Microsoft’s Azure and native FMS capabilities.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers

Challengers in the Magic Quadrant have a more significant market presence than Niche Players and Visionaries. Yet, they lack the broader vision of leaders to drive industry innovation forward. This year’s challengers are:

• Oracle (NetSuite)

Oracle (NetSuite)

NetSuite is a prominent ERP platform with a presence spanning the globe. Gartner notes this as a core strength alongside the solution’s “360-degree dashboards” and integrations with the broader Oracle OCI ecosystem. Yet, one caution Gartner cites is its “planning and analysis” solutions that require considerable customization.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionaries

Visionaries in the Magic Quadrant understand how enterprises change as they move to a cloud ERP, as evident in their vision. However, they typically fall behind in their track record for execution. This year’s visionaries are:

• There are no visionaries in the 2024 Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Service-Centric Enterprises

Gartner Magic Quadrant Niche Players

Niche players in the Magic Quadrant may perform well in particular industries or across specific use cases. Yet, they trail in completeness of vision and ability to execute. This year’s niche players are:

• Microsoft (Business Central)
• Sage
• SAP (Business ByDesign)
• Certina

Microsoft (Business Central)

According to Gartner, Microsoft Business Central has 40,000 customers. That reflects its market momentum. The analyst highlights this, the platform’s “AI-enabled Copilot”, and “Microsoft stack integration” as strengths. However, Gartner cautions that migrations to the ERP from alternative Microsoft solutions have proven tricky.

Sage

Sage Intacct excels in “financial management”, thanks partly to its new accounts payable process automation capabilities. Gartner notes this and isolates further strengths in its “support for project-driven organizations” and “improved industry focus”. Its “incomplete procurement and HR strategy” is cited as a caution.

SAP (Business ByDesign)

SAP Business ByDesign promises to connect all business functions with in-depth analytics. Gartner notes how these analytics exemplify its “modern platform”, which it cites as a strength, alongside ByDesign’s industry-specific innovation and “service provider ecosystem”. Its “slowing product roadmap” is marked as a concern.

Certinia

Certinia primarily targets the midmarket. That may have hampered its performance in this enterprise report. Nevertheless, the vendor wins credit for its “customer-centric operations”, community, and intuitive features. Its cautions include a “partner dependency on HR capabilities” and limited environmental, social, and governance (ESG) tools.

A Final Takeaway from the Cloud ERP for Service-Centric Enterprises Magic Quadrant

Alongside vendor analysis, Gartner sometimes reports on industry trends and statistics within its Magic Quadrant reports.

One fascinating statistic in the 2024 Magic Quadrant is that:

By 2027, at least 50% of the AI-powered features of ERP applications will be enabled through GenAI capabilities.

That exemplifies the huge impact the technology is having on the space – and the potential for agentic AI.

One area where this will prove massive is in ERP data management. After all, poor ERP data can have significant consequences, not only on business performance but also from a legal and regulatory perspective.

If AI agents can cover the enterprise stack and update the ERP with the latest data points, the tech could considerably enhance customer and employee experiences.

For more Gartner Magic Quadrant coverage, check out the following articles:

• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center (CEC) 2024
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) 2024