Understanding Spryker’s Recognition as a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant
An assessment of Spryker’s positioning in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital CommerceObjective of this document
For enterprise commerce and IT executives, the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce is a highly valuable piece of analyst research that provides an understandable overview of a complex market. This document provides context and helps executives understand Gartner's assessment of Spryker in more detail. We will summarize the overall results and trends in the 2023 Magic Quadrant, and then zoom into the evaluation of Spryker. How did Gartner position Spryker on which criteria? What were the reasons for Gartner’s evaluation of Spryker? And what do these results mean for your business?
What is the Gartner Magic Quadrant all about?
Founded in 1979, Gartner is one of the leading analyst firms worldwide. Its mission is to equip executives across the enterprise to make the right decisions and stay ahead of change. For that, their flagship publication is the annual technology research called Magic Quadrant where the most relevant industry vendors are assessed. It is called ‘quadrant’ as the final overview chart is segmented into four quadrants which divide the companies listed into four broad categories: niche, challenger, visionary, or leader.
The Gartner Magic Quadrant can be seen as a snapshot of the current market situation for digital commerce vendors. As the market’s overall direction is often evolving, so do Gartner’s evaluation criteria. The report also contains an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each provider, which is a comprehensive and market-driven reflection of the current performance and vision of the providers.
With the increasing complexity of the digital commerce market, the importance of such an objective market overview to support the enterprise software selection process is critical. Gartner analysts have extensive relationships with enterprise business leaders and buyers of technology, and they study vendors very closely throughout the year.
The results of their comprehensive analysis are only published once a year. While Magic Quadrants are published for every conceivable tool and software category, this document focuses solely on the Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce in its most recent edition from August 2023.
Please note:
Gartner produces two annual evaluation reports on digital commerce; The Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce and Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce. The Magic Quadrant report contains the Quadrant graphic and a detailed write-up on all the vendors as a business, as well as general conclusions and forecasted trends. The Critical Capabilities report looks at all vendors included in the Magic Quadrant, scoring and ranking each of them according to the depth of functionality for 5 separate use cases; B2C, B2B, B2C & B2B combined, Composability and Scale & Complexity. This document focuses primarily on the Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce report.
Overview of the 2023 Magic Quadrant
The 2023 Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce was released on XX August. The responsible analysts are Mike Lowndes, Jason Daigler, Aditya Vasudevan, Penny Gillespie, Sandy Shen and Yanna Dharmasthira. Overall, 18 vendors are included in the 2023 Magic Quadrant. The key results can be summarized as follows:
New Leaders Quadrant
- Shopify has been recognized as Leader in the 2023 Magic Quadrant, while the other four players (Salesforce, commercetools, Adobe, and SAP) remain in the Leaders Quadrant. Both SAP and commercetools advanced in the Ability to Execute axis, while Adobe and commercetools moved backwards on the Completeness of Vision axis. Spryker is now squarely the most innovative vendor, farthest ahead in Completeness of Vision, with the exception of Salesforce.
Optimizely left the Quadrant & Shopware now a Visionary
- Optimizely entered the Magic Quadrant as a Challenger in 2021, moved to a Niche Player in 2022, and in 2023, dropped out of the Quadrant entirely. Shopware has been a Niche Player for the past three years, moving gradually along the Completeness of Vision axis, and joins the Visionary Quadrant in 2023. Kibo has moved from Visionary to Challenger, while VTEX has moved up slightly in Ability to Execute.
2022 new entrants stayed as Niche Players
- Sana Commerce, SCAYLE, and Infosys all joined the Magic Quadrant for the first time in 2022. In 2023, all vendors remain in the Niche Players Quadrant, along with Unilog. There is one new entrant to the 2023 Quadrant – The Hut Group (THG), entering as a Niche Player.
Spryker continues strong position as a Visionary
- Spryker has advanced on the Completeness of Vision axis, securing its position as the strongest in this factor among the Visionary Quadrant. Oro has also advanced in Completeness of Vision, while VTEX has advanced in Ability to Execute.
Included in the Magic Quadrant for the fourth consecutive year, Spryker has been evaluated as ‘Visionary’ by Gartner. Spryker is positioned 2nd of all vendors for Completeness of Vision and 2nd highest for Ability to Execute in the Visionaries’ Quadrant.
In addition, Gartner scored Spryker in the top 5 (out of 17 vendors) in each of the five functional use cases in the Critical Capabilities supplemental report. Most notably, Spryker ranked top 2 for Composability against all B2B vendors. This positions Spryker very strongly, with enterprises increasingly looking for specific transformational functionality to move quickly, as well as change solutions or technologies rapidly.
By ranking Spryker as both Visionary in the highly competitive Magic Quadrant and top 5 for all Critical Capabilities use cases, Gartner is sending a clear signal that Spryker continues to be squarely positioned head to head with all large players in terms of composability and sophisticated B2B use cases.
In this section, we will take a closer look at Spryker’s evaluation to provide more context to Gartner’s assessment.
What does ‘Completeness of Vision’ mean?
‘Completeness of Vision’ stands for the forward-looking idea, strategy and future-proofness of the providers and how well they succeed in addressing the movements on the market and needs of tomorrow today.
Gartner definition: ‘Completeness of Vision' reflects the vendor’s innovation, whether the vendor drives or follows the market, and if the vendor’s view of how the market will develop matches Gartner’s perspective.
The standard criteria that are being assessed to evaluate the vendors’ ability to execute are:
- Market understanding: The ability of a vendor to understand buyers’ needs and translate these needs into products and services.
- Marketing strategy: Strength, clarity, and consistency of marketing messages throughout all channels.
- Sales strategy: Strategy across sales channels to extend market reach, expertise, and customer base.
- Offering (product) strategy: Solutions for current and future requirements in the vendor’s approach to product development and service delivery
- Business model: The validity and logic of a vendor’s underlying business proposition in this market.
- Vertical/Industry strategy: Ability to meet the needs of individual market segments.
- Innovation: Marshaling of resources, expertise or capital for competitive advantage.
- Geographic strategy: Quality of the locally adapted offerings outside vendor’s region of origin.
How did Spryker perform?
Spryker is in the 2nd spot on the x-axis Completeness of Vision among all vendors globally, solidifying Spryker’s innovative approach to digital commerce. For this category, Gartner measures understanding of market requirements, product features roadmap, and vision for the future of digital commerce. As the furthest along the Completeness of Vision axis of all the Visionary vendors, Gartner is sending a clear signal about Spryker’s ability to help enterprise businesses transform for the market of tomorrow.
As mentioned in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce:
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What does Spryker’s result mean?
Included in the Magic Quadrant for four consecutive years, Spryker is one of the fastest moving vendors in terms of Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute – with a solid position in the Visionary Quadrant and clearly competing with all other major players. Gartner is demonstrating the importance of innovation through composable architectures in driving the future of business commerce. Scoring highly for Composability in the Critical Capabilities report, Spryker’s modular architecture secures its spot as a strong vendor to help enterprise businesses with sophisticated transactional business models. This recognition by Gartner presents a bright future for composability and its impact on large enterprises across most industries.
What does ‘Ability to Execute’ mean?
The ‘Ability to Execute’ stands for the already implemented, tangible and measurable business of the providers in the past year.
Gartner definition: ‘Ability to Execute’ summarizes factors such as the vendor’s financial viability, market responsiveness, product development, sales channels and customer base.
The standard criteria that are being assessed to evaluate the vendors’ Ability to Execute are:
- Product: How well do the offered capabilities compete in the market?
- Overall viability: The vendor’s financial health and practical success
- Sales execution/pricing: Capabilities in (pre-)sales activities and their overall effectiveness
- Market responsiveness/track record: Ability to respond to market changes flexibly and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop
- Marketing execution: Clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of the vendor’s activities to deliver their message and build a strong brand.
- Customer experience: The relationship and enablement of clients to succeed.
- Operations: The vendor’s ability to meet its goals and commitments.
How did Spryker perform?
In only its fourth year of inclusion in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Spryker was once again recognized as Visionary. The strong advancement in both Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision over the past couple of years has propelled Spryker close to the leader Quadrant in a relatively short period of time.
As mentioned in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce:
What does Spryker’s result mean?
If the x-axis describes the potential and foresight of a solution, the y-axis represents the extent to which a vendor has been able to translate this vision into successful projects in practice. Spryker's strong advancement on the Ability to Execute axis reflects large enterprise B2B & B2C customer wins in all major regions, illustrating that Spryker is one of the fastest growing vendors in the Magic Quadrant.
Taken together, this result means that Spryker has demonstrated ability to execute its visionary understanding of the market and is recognized as a viable enterprise product by Gartner.
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Spryker’s Vision for the Market
The following table shows several examples of how Spryker’s market understanding and solutions fit the future predictions by Gartner analysts. Gartner indicates concepts that will be crucial keys to success in the future of digital commerce. These future success factors match Spryker’s approach and value proposition today, which is why Spryker has been recognized as Visionary by Gartner.
Digital commerce efficiency with Spryker
Spryker has been indirectly validated in both the Magic Quadrant and Critical Capabilities report for two consecutive years as one of the most visionary and cutting-edge commerce vendors. With an increased focus on cost saving and efficiency across the market, Spryker is able to assist customers with reducing spend in the short term with:
- Pre-developed PBCs across all areas of commerce functionality. These reduce development and customization time, even for the most sophisticated use cases.
- Industry-leading services and education (Spryker Composable Value Services). These are leveraged to reduce customer and partner time to MVP across the entire life-cycle, from ideation through to implementation.
- Functionality across B2B, B2C, and Marketplace. Spryker’s one-stop-shop decreases overall cost of acquisition and integration of new business models.
In the long-term, Spryker can increase efficiency with:
- Third-party integrations. With business users composing applications with one click, the time to market for new business opportunities is reduced.
- The ecosystem of third-party modules. This curated selection reduces integration costs.
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Disclaimer
All statements in this report attributable to Gartner represent Spryker Systems’ interpretation of data, research opinion or viewpoints published as part of a syndicated subscription service by Gartner, Inc., and have not been reviewed by Gartner. Each Gartner publication speaks as of its original publication date (and not as of the date of this document). The opinions expressed in Gartner publications are not representations of fact and are subject to change without notice.
About Spryker
Spryker is the leading global composable commerce platform for enterprises with sophisticated business models to enable growth, innovation, and differentiation. Designed specifically for sophisticated transactional businesses, Spryker’s easy-to-use, headless, API-first model offers a best-of-breed approach that provides businesses the flexibility to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating faster time-to-value throughout their digital transformation journey. As a global platform leader for B2B and B2C Enterprise Marketplaces, IoT Commerce, and Unified Commerce, Spryker has empowered 150+ global enterprise customers worldwide and is trusted by brands such as ALDI, Siemens, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Ricoh. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin and New York backed by world class investors such as TCV, One Peak, Project A, Cherry Ventures, and Maverick Capital. Learn more at spryker.com.