Research - Consulting

HARBOR’S DIFFERENTIATION

At the core Of Harbor’s approach Is a deep and thorough understanding of the core technologies, market and business characteristics, as well as the management and organizational challenges companies face developing or adopting digital and Smart Systems technologies.

WE COVER ALL FACETS OF MARKET, TECHNOLOGY, PLAYER, GROWTH STRATEGY, PRODUCT, PERSONA & UX RESEARCH

MARKETS

Knowing which segments, applications and use cases to focus on and which market relationships to create will be critical in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. Our research helps business developers and growth teams identify new growth opportunities and creatively imagine fully developed systems and whole marketplaces.

TECHNOLOGY

Creative combinations of emerging technologies are increasingly accelerating and reinforcing one another. New embedded intelligence, networking and software innovations are all in some way trying to break from today’s technology paradigms. Explore our research and perspectives on Smart Systems and how they will enable unimagined new solutions.

STRATEGY

The assumption that business models are only about new customer experiences and making exiting products or services more attractive no longer works. Business model design needs to transcend traditional product or service innovation. Explore Harbor’s business design knowledge, research and experience to ignite new ideas.

PLAYER ECOSYSTEM

Harbor analyzes diverse technology and solution players across the Smart Systems and IoT landscape. Our player tracking and intelligence gathering provides clients with analysis and business models, as well as market positioning. Use our player research to help inform your competitive, partnership, acquisition or solution delivery strategies and build your Smart Systems ecosystem.

MARKET RESEARCH

The business world has entered a new chapter with unexpected challenges, unfamiliar technologies and diverse new innovators that require a new approach to research – one that balances the qualitative with the quantitative – which we feel is more revealing in markets that hold a recognizable shape barely long enough to be described or measured. Explore our thematic research to see what trends and discontinuities we are investigating.

UI/UX RESEARCH

Launching new products and services can be daunting – it’s imperative to understand your end users and the user experience they will have when utilizing your product. Harbor Research can take out the guess work through in-depth persona, market and competitor studies, as well as user/persona interviews. We will provide data-backed informed recommendations to support  the best path forward for your product or service.

HARBOR’S METHODOLOGY

Harbor Research views growth opportunities through the unique lens of Smart Systems. We approach research and analysis from three sides: markets, technologies and business strategies. Our approach means you get more than quant, you get a compass to guide you to the most optimal, lowest risk paths to growth and innovation.

Harbor Research - 3 Tier Methodology

HARBOR’S SMART SYSTEMS FORECAST MODEL & TAXONOMY

Harbor Research’s forecast model weighs opportunities in a unique way, through the lens of Smart Systems.

Harbor Research’s Smart Systems Model is much more than a simple forecast or underlying quantitative analysis database.  The foundation of our modeling is a unique, multi-dimensional taxonomy for analyzing markets, customer segments, applications, use cases, technologies, players and more.

MARKET MODELING

Click the chart to drill down. Click the center to drill up.

Companies trying to address new Smart Systems, Services and IoT opportunities need market analysis and modeling tools that can address both qualitative and quantitative dimensions – we need to understand buyers and users needs, behaviors and desired experiences, but we also need to know how many potential buyers there are, in which customer segments and at what scale.

Segmentation and modeling can be a challenging process. Understanding which combinations of attributes best characterize customers is a critical element in identifying and selecting opportunities to focus on. We have come to believe that segmentation in the era of smart “connected” systems needs to carefully combine and integrate multiple dimensions, including technology tools, customer needs and competitor positions.

SMART SYSTEMS & PLAYER ECOSYSTEMS DRIVE OUR RESEARCH

Harbor Research focuses on the markets and industries that are touched by Smart Systems and Internet of Things technologies.

Our research capabilities include player tracking, ecosystem mapping, events and news analysis, technology tracking, UX research and quantitative modeling of growth opportunities. In this fast-changing environment, leadership’s ability to identify emergent trends “around corners” will become a minimum requirement. In our experience, this capability is more art than science, but keeping up with technology and innovation is critical.

Harbor Research covers the following industries and more:

The “center of gravity” in the Enterprise will increasingly be driven by new sensing devices, edge computing capabilities and distributed intelligence. Higher bandwidth and reliable connectivity are key to many new business models. Embedded systems and connectivity technologies are enabling new innovations. Read more…

A new generation of high-performance network technologies—5G, time sensitive and new sensor networks—are unleashing an age of pervasive connectivity that is fostering entirely new modes of customer interaction and services. Realizing this potential will require new ecosystems and business models.  Read more…

Containerization is ubiquitous, languages are less important and microservices are available everywhere. All this changes how software is developed, but it also creates huge complexity. What new software opportunities are evolving in the market, what business models align with these growth opportunities, and how should software players organize their service and solution delivery?  Read more…

Smart Systems are creating new solution delivery modes that are turning manufacturers, and in many cases others along the value chain, into a new kind of application services business. First movers in asset management, security as a service, customer support innovation and more are locking down lasting positions in their industries. New data driven application solutions are disrupting virtually all sectors of the economy.  Read more…

New smart city technologies are showing promise in their ability to alleviate citizen and agency stakeholder pain-points, but the diversity of technologies and the number of applications and integration dimensions create numerous hurdles to adoption. While many cities are beginning to modernize, embracing technologies to improve their essential urban systems and enable more effective resource utilization is a complex challenge.  Read more…

The acceleration of smart systems and digital innovations is causing a revolution in industrial systems, machinery and resource-driven segments. New business models, unexpected category dynamics, and disruptive technologies are challenging long-held beliefs and outdated strategy assumptions. Companies need to creatively evolve their business models and value delivery schemes to respond to the ever-changing customer and competitor landscape. Read more…

Traditional power equipment manufacturers are facing new software and renewables competitors. Energy sector players need to step back and re-imagine solutions and re-think delivery models. Energy technology companies need to evolve their strategies to creatively leverage new software and data technologies which are forever changing the way solutions will be delivered and value is created.  Read more…

New mobility technologies are driving significant discontinuities in the vehicle, mobile equipment and transportation arena. Traditional vehicle manufacturers as well as construction, agriculture, mining, and material handing machine suppliers will need to define new mobility business models to leverage the diverse innovations invading these markets.   Read more…

The term “smart” implies intelligent, but you wouldn’t know it from today’s residential and consumer technology arena – a fragmented landscape full of narrow point-solutions, time-sink gadgetry, entertainment obsessions, and software/platform incompatibility. The next wave of “Smart Home” innovation needs to address the adoption barriers for smart interoperable systems.   Read more…

The retail and commercial services sector continues to be a highly competitive, low-margin environment where disruption has become the new normal. Battered by new online services, traditional bricks and mortar businesses search to balance their brands with new services, cross-channel interactions, and the impacts of digital technologies. Retailing needs to re-think how to design new modes of interaction with information-rich consumers. Understanding how Smart Services technologies can enable new customer experiences and achieve back office efficiencies will be critical.  Read more…

Smarter healthcare equipment and systems are becoming integrated with virtual digital systems. This allows the data from patient sensors, diagnostic machines and more to become an integral part of all healthcare information systems. Developing new ecosystems to create new unimagined capabilities for patient care and delivery is the first step towards new growth.  Read more…

All of the sub-systems in buildings—including power systems, HVAC, lighting, security, people movers, and more—produce data that has largely gone unharvested and under leveraged. Identifying and acting on new information-based services will create extraordinary business advantages for both established and emergent players.  Understanding how new digital building technologies are creating new “social” and data relationships between equipment suppliers will be key. Read more…

HOW TO WORK WITH US

Harbor Research has research available for purchase in the form of briefs and factbooks, which you can browse below. Contact us to learn about our quarterly retainer service, which will help you consistently stay in the know and save money.

We work with clients to provide custom research and analysis. Simply contact us to set up a meeting and we would be happy to discuss your needs.