What You’ll Find in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms

Next week is the release of the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms (CSP). In the world of enterprise technology solutions, businesses rely on analyst reports like the Magic Quadrant to help guide their strategy. Recognition of vendors by respected analysts like Gartner are a central tool for organizations that are reviewing cornerstone technology — in this case Content Services Platforms.

In the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms, you’ll find:

• A comprehensive snapshot of the CSP market
• Forward-looking market overview and analysis of the future of enterprise content management
• Unbiased vendor analysis of the top 18 platforms with strengths and cautions
• Actionable evaluation criteria for potential buyers

Why is the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms a Highly Anticipated Edition?

In our industry, the Magic Quadrant is a big deal. But this year, it’s also a pretty big deal for the market at-large — more than most years, in fact. Here’s why:

1 | The Normalization of Remote Work

As tired as we all are of hearing about the coronavirus, its impact on business has been immense. About 64% of US employees are working from home now, according to research conducted by SHRM’s COVID-19 Business Index. As a result, companies had the mirror turned on themselves and had to get real about where they were in their digital transformation journey. (For more on this, check out our podcast How COVID Exposed Digital Transformation Leaders and Laggards.)

Remote work enablement tools came into sharp focus and businesses had to wrangle and adjust their technology to accomplish even the most basic functions — communicating with each other, collaborating, and accessing business-critical information. The latter — information access — is a cornerstone to a flexible, remote workplace. How can workers stay productive and efficient if they’re trying to chase down information?

The ability to work with documents, files, and information the same way at home as at the office is intrinsic to content services platforms. For some organizations, the transition to work-from-home was easier if they already had a content services platform. For others, it was a challenge.

But the fact that this may indeed be the new normal means that organizations will be taking a closer look at their information management strategy and, by proxy, their content services platform — or lack thereof — and the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CSPs becomes an indispensable tool in that pursuit.

2 | The Evolution of Content Services Platforms

Information management is in the midst of an evolution. M-Files Senior VP Alliances Greg Milliken explained three distinct phases of this evolution in a recent blog article:

1. The Monolith. A single central repository for all information — the proliferation of data silos.
2. Unification. Breaking down and unifying disconnected silos with a repository-neutral approach — Information can be anywhere.
3. Integration. Seamless “in-context” access to information in the user interface of your choice.

We’ve gone from the simplistic document management phase, where an information system simply served as a central place to save files. It’s a good concept with broad application but often resulted in the creation of yet another data silo.

In the second phase, the industry started to adopt a more repository-neutral approach, with M-Files leading the charge. Information management platforms started to integrate with other common repositories — like network folders, SharePoint, email, and others.

The third phase is one that saw the advent of content services platforms, as we know them. Now, businesses want an information management platform that is front end neutral — one which can be accessed from within common core applications — accessing all company information from within Salesforce, for example, without having to switch applications.

Ultimately, the folks at Gartner include sections on the future of information management and cue the market to changes and further evolutions. Thus, the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms becomes a harbinger of things to come which business leaders will want to digest and incorporate into their strategy.

Get Your Complimentary Copy from M-Files

Your digital transformation has come into sharp focus this year.

How will you respond? How do you go about future-proofing your business? How do you answer the charge and create a truly flexible workplace?

Download your copy of the most anticipated edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms — an indispensable tool for helping you answer those tough questions. Find out which solutions smart companies like yours are evaluating to carve a path to true digital transformation.

The full report is available for download here: