Forrester Research

	Thomas Mendel, Ph.D. Vice President, Research Director

Research Coverage

CMDB, Sourcing Strategy & Execution, Strategy Execution & Measurement, IT Infrastructure & Operations, Corporate Strategy, Sourcing & Procurement, Systems Management, Media & Entertainment, Telecommunications Services, IT Process Automation, Product & Solutions Strategies, Service-Level Agreements, Strategy Frameworks & Models, IT Management Software, High-Tech, Product Portfolio Strategies, Mobile Services, Business Service Management, Data Center Management

Research Focus

Thomas serves Vendor Strategy professionals and leads a team that delivers research to help these professionals. Thomas is responsible for a research agenda that illuminates strategic opportunities and risks, market demand and competitive dynamics, and go-to-market, as well as organizational strategies and the use of emerging technology to improve business results for technology vendors.
Thomas is an internationally recognized authority on IT management software. He also maintains research interests in the areas of converging IT and telecommunication technologies and markets, as well as IT to business alignment.

Previous Work Experience

Thomas came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group, which he joined in 2001. Most recently, Thomas was vice president of the Solution Center Global Network and program director of Global Information Technology Infrastructure for Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. He was responsible for the management of the Heidelberg Global Network and the design and rollout of all global infrastructure projects — for example, the implementation of the Heidelberg intranet in more than 60 countries.
Prior to joining Heidelberg, Thomas was an IT manager at ABB Kraftwerke AG and a senior consultant for corporate staff technology at ABB Deutschland AG, both in Mannheim, Germany. At the latter company, he was also responsible for the development and implementation of strategic concepts for IT and customer relationship management (CRM).
He is in great demand as a conference speaker, both in Europe and North America. Thomas' work has enjoyed wide exposure in the media. He does consulting work with major end user organizations and vendors in many countries.

Education

A native of Germany, Thomas is a graduate of business studies at Mannheim University and holds a Ph.D. in computer networks from the University of Wales in Swansea.