The accounts receivable (AR) automation landscape is evolving rapidly, with solutions like Quadient AR, Billtrust, Tesorio, BlackLine, HighRadius, VersaPay, and FIS GET Paid all offering a range of similar features. This environment has made it hard for businesses to select their ideal solution.
While market research reports such as Gartner's Magic Quadrant and SPARK Matrix can provide valuable insights, understanding how to interpret these reports and knowing what else to consider beyond the data they offer is key to finding a solution that fits your organization’s unique needs.
In this blog post, we’ll show you how to interpret these reports, weigh your options, and explore what else you should consider before selecting an AR vendor.
Decoding market research reports
Every year, analyst firms and review sites like Gartner, QKS Group SPARK Matrix, Forrester, and G2 evaluate software vendors based on specific criteria, including scalability, implementation and cost, ease of use, and market presence. Many of these evaluations provide a bird’s-eye view of each solution’s strengths as well as their areas for improvement.
Since most AR automation solutions offer a similar set of core functionality (e.g. invoice and credit risk management, dispute and payment collections, and some level of AI (artificial intelligence)), it’s important that these reports are only used as one of many inputs into a final selection.
Businesses should identify their unique needs (e.g. size, industry niche) and then compare the results of these reports to shortlist their preferred vendors. Here’s three things to keep in mind as you review these analyst reports:
Start with your business priorities. Are you an SMB (small-to-medium sized business) looking for simplicity and speed, or a mid-market to enterprise size organization requiring advanced functionality? Be sure to weigh the cost of both complexity and customization.
For example:
• SMBs considering enterprise solutions: Enterprise-focused vendors offer powerful tools tailored to large, complex organizations. However, SMBs may encounter significant pitfalls, such as lengthy implementations, high costs, and feature-overwhelm that might be excessive for simple AR needs.
• Mid-market firms balancing growth and complexity: Mid-market companies face a difficult choice between simplicity and customization. Vendors that can offer a middle ground, combining advanced integrations with user-friendly interfaces, offer a solid compromise.
• Global enterprises prioritizing scale: For large organizations managing multi-region operations, scalability and robust analytics are key. Features like AI-powered forecasting, comprehensive reporting, and future-proofing could be worth the time and investment for their specific business needs.- Understand each report’s biases. Each market research report has a specific readership (e.g. Gartner reports tend to be read by enterprise-sized businesses; so their reviews tend to focus on software that supports enterprise clients). Each report will rank competitors according to their readership and those rankings should be evaluated accordingly.
- Check for overlap. Do multiple reports praising a vendor for the same reasons? Or highlight similar opportunities for improvement? Consistency across reports can be a strong indicator of reliability.
Quadient AR's positioning in Gartner and SPARK Matrix
Given their different focuses, the Gartner Magic Quadrant report and the SPARK Matrix report are both helpful to holistically evaluate an AR automation solution. Let’s explore the nuance of each report:
- Gartner's Magic Quadrant: This report evaluates vendors based on completeness of vision and ability to execute and caters more to enterprises with a structured procurement process. Vendors are categorized into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.
- SPARK Matrix: This report evaluates vendors for their technology excellence and customer impact, often providing a more detailed breakdown of specific strengths and a deeper dive into specific technologies or use cases.
Let’s explore how each report positions Quadient AR.
2024 SPARK Matrix
Quadient AR is proud to be positioned as a leader in the 2024 SPARK Matrix. Our solution delivers robust back-end AR automation, streamlining key processes including invoice management, delinquent account handling, dispute resolution, collections, cash management, and providing powerful dashboards and analytics for actionable insights.
Quadient is recognized as helping organizations automate their order-to-cash cycle and accelerate their cash flow, all through an industry-renowned user-friendly interface. Our platform leverages OCE and ML technology to automate payments, as well as OpenAI to generate one-off emails and email replies.
2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant Report
We are proud to retain our quadrant position as a Niche player in Gartner’s invoice-to-cash Magic Quadrant 2024. Our positioning showcases our unique feature set, specialization, and agility to respond quickly and unique to our individual customer needs.
We are recognized for our operational ability to unite both AP and AR as a joint package in our Quadient Hub. Our product capability additions like those with Microsoft Azure and Daylight demonstrate our continued drive to improve, while our investments in both AI and customer behavioral analytics sets us apart.
Moving forward with an AR automation solution
Choosing the right AR automation solution is a big decision! Reports like Gartner's Magic Quadrant and SPARK Matrix are excellent starting points to understand market dynamics, but they are not the end-all-be-all. By balancing insights from market research with a clear understanding of your business goals, you can confidently choose a solution that streamlines your AR processes, boosts efficiency, and supports your long-term growth.
If Quadient AR is on your shortlist, we’d love to show you our solution in more depth. Book a demo today!
