Market Intelligence: Understand the Impact of Software and Outsourcing Solutions – Before You Invest
Digital World Class® companies operate at a 29% cost advantage over peers – in part because they leverage the right software and outsourcing to drive business value and operational excellence.
What if you could see which solutions drive real performance improvement?
In a progressively digital world, it isn’t enough for solution providers – including software vendors and outsourcers – to offer a robust feature set and have broad market penetration. You want evidence of tangible performance improvement and measurable business impact as you make investment decisions. But traditional evaluation/ratings tools don’t offer this degree of insight.
Now, you can.
The Hackett Group’s Market Intelligence service provides that added dimension: a view into how software and service provider offerings help companies drive toward Digital World Class performance. That’s insight you won’t find anywhere else.
Here’s another reason to strive for Digital World Class: These organizations also enable superior enterprise performance – including 83% higher net margin compared to their five-year industry median.
Source: Benchmarking Study, The Hackett Group, 2022

Introducing the Hackett Excelleration Matrix™
With in-depth process knowledge and understanding of what it takes to become Digital World Class, we measure the degree to which solution providers and offerings help companies generate return on investment and achieve better business outcomes. Here’s how:
We group offerings based on particular business or functional process areas – for example, a particular customer-to-cash process or third-party risk management. Then, we assess offerings based on two dimensions: capability breadth and market penetration and business value and impact.
This analysis positions service providers in five categories on the Hackett Excelleration Matrix™:
Incumbents
Offerings with high capability and broad reach.
Innovators
More specialized offerings that may produce market-leading results but are more limited in breadth or other areas, such as integration with other solutions.
Challengers
Offerings moving toward greater value realization and capability breadth but are not fully established yet.
Emerging
Offerings still developing and defining their capabilities and go-to-market strengths with limited market share but showing signs of growth.
Digital World Class®
Offerings with high capability and proven results that move companies toward Digital World Class performance.

Cash Application, Collections and Dispute Management
Download a redacted version of The Hackett Group’s Customer-to-Cash Solutions Provider Research: Cash Application, Collections and Dispute to learn about the C2C software market landscape.

Customer-to-Cash Solutions Provider Research
The full 70-page version of the research is available for purchase. It includes an array of metrics detailing peer, media, and top quartile customer-to-cash performance, and profiles and deep dives on nine leading solution providers that participated.
Which software and outsourcing solutions are covered?
Includes rating reports on software and outsourcing solutions that cover cash application, collection and dispute management, order and contract management, and other related areas.
Includes rating reports on software and outsourcing solutions that support the hire-to-retire process and other related areas.
Includes ratings reports on software and outsourcing solutions that support the source-to-pay process and related areas.
A first-of-its-kind objective rating of performance impact
Our solution provider Market Intelligence Reports are grounded in real-world , empirical data gathered through our benchmarking studies and market research.
How we build Market Intelligence Reports
For each solution provider participating in a particular study, we gather the following information:
Solution provider survey
Features, functions and market breadth/depth of implementation.
Solution provider strategy session
Articulated strategy and unique points of strength.
Buyer reference checks
Interviews with selected solution provider clients.
Client survey
Questions designed to assess clients’ experience and satisfaction, as well as the offering’s performance impact.
Our client survey collects data from solution providers’ clients about:
Performance, based on approximately 10 key metrics relevant to the offering category. For example, analysis of a solution designed to automate and enable the customer-to-cash process may collect data such as:
- What is the average cycle time to resolve an invoice/receivable-related dispute?
- What percentage of customer payments are digitally matched and posted at the account level?
- What is your average time to apply cash?
- What is your overall process cost per transaction?
Experience, through questions such as:
- How would you rate your overall customer satisfaction/experience with the provider?
- How would you rate overall user adoption for the module?
- Please rate the efficiency of your implementation (cost, time to go live, etc.).
- Please rate the effectiveness of your implementation (value for money, impact on business processes, etc.).
- Please rate the experience of your implementation journey (ease, disruption to daily operations, etc.).
How we evaluate performance impact
We compare aggregated client survey responses against our benchmarking data to measure performance relative to that of Digital World Class organizations.
Who will benefit?
Know the quantified return on investment a solution provider can have on the business – not just the features and functions.
Know the quantified value a solution provider can deliver a business function – not just the costs – and make better purchasing decisions for the business.
Advise business partners on the quantified value a solution provider can deliver to the business.
Any executive charged with delivering business improvement can benefit from knowing the quantifiable value solution providers can deliver.
Two ways to access solution provider market intelligence reports
Client services
As a client, receive relevant advisory, benchmarking and transformation services.
Report
Purchase a report for a solution category relevant to your needs.

Market Intelligence Service Launch
A spotlight on The Hackett Group’s newly-launched Market Intelligence Service, which evaluates and ranks software and services providers, quantifying the business value realized. With Principal Michel Janssen, and Global IP Practice Leader Anthony Snowball.
A critical tool on your continuous improvement journey
Our Market Intelligence Reports can play a key role in your journey to achieve Digital World Class performance levels – helping you choose the right solutions to drive transformation.
Assess
Identify and prioritize areas where digital transformation can have the greatest impact.
Design
Develop strategies and choose the right software and outsourcing solutions for your digital transformation goals.
Implement
See digital transformation projects through to completion and measure results.
Optimize
Evaluate ways to continuously improve the impact of digital transformation.
Why trust your Digital World Class® journey to The Hackett Group?
Unmatched intellectual capital
Insight from analyzing our in-depth benchmarking repository allows us to expedite your transformation. Benefit from practices that run the world’s best businesses.
Value obsession
We’ve quantified value realization – calculated using our unmatched business benchmarking data – and correlated business practices with superior performance, allowing us to pinpoint the best opportunities for performance gains.
Technology-agnostic mindset
We know how to enable peak performance and can help select the best technology, platform or partner, and implement solutions that accelerate measurable value and achieve business goals.
Exclusive assets
Leverage our proprietary enablement tools and resources, based on our unique intellectual capital, to chart your improvement course, monitor progress, and quantify value.
Exclusive assets to fuel your digital transformation journey
With all the complexities involved in digital transformation, knowing that others have planted some of the mileposts instills a sense of confidence in the outcome. The Hackett Group’s Market Intelligence Reports are the latest in a suite of exclusive assets that will aid you along the way. Here are some others:
Digital Transformation Platform
Speed digital transformation in finance, human resources, procurement and supply chain functions with our suite of resources.
Quantum Leap®
Automate the benchmarking and management of continuous improvement initiatives.
Are You Ready to Accelerate Your Digital World Class™ Journey?
The Hackett Group’s new Market Intelligence insight is one more way we can help you drive toward Digital World Class performance.