CxO Matrix competitively ranks technology vendors in various market segments, based on their alignment with industry trends, market share, vision, and product roadmap.

A CxO Matrix is a culmination of research in a specific market segment, giving you a competitive view of the relative positions of the market segments competitors.

Applying a mathematical tabular ranking format, CxO Matrix helps you quickly identify how well technology vendors are aligning their product visions with industry trends and delivering on product roadmap.

CxO Matrix is based of the principals of a mathematical matrix with 3 categories, whilst Gartner Magic Quadrant is represented as a graph with 4 quadrants.

CxO Matrix simplifies vendor rankings, combining the challenger and visionary categories under a single classification of visionary, CxO Guide determined the challenger classification often lead to confusion and overlapped with the visionary, as there was lack of a clear definition and perception between the two categories.

Use a CxO Matrix as a first step to understanding the technology vendors you might consider for a specific technology project.

Leaders represent the best overall vendor of choice, whilst visionaries and niche players may be more appropriate for your specific needs based on a specific use case, industry vertical or company size.

A CxO Matrix provides a tabular competitive positioning of three types of technology vendors: leaders, visionary, and niche.

- Leader vendors: have a product with strong market share, vision aligned with industry trends and deliver on their product roadmap.

- Visionary vendors: have a product that could disrupt market leaders, vision aligned with industry trends, but has yet to gain significant market share and deliver on product roadmap.

- Niche vendors: focus on a small market segment, which maybe limited on features and vision, specialized for a specific industry or company size e.g. manufacturing industry and small business.

- Class leaders: Identify the best overall vendor choice in each classification, clearly defining the best choice for niche, visionary and market leader.