It’s nice being listed as the best…….

Getting news that you are considered a leader is always nice, but it does present itself as a challenge as well. Just look at the New England Patriots, or Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Sachin Tendulkar, Zinedine Zidane, Muhammad Ali….all being listed as the best at their craft, but everyone is then trying to knock them off their perch,…not so they can be recognized as the best, but just to have the satisfaction that they beat the best.

The competition will always have volumes of data on why they are better than the best with little other information on any other contender, so what does that say. Everyone is gunning for number one.

Everyone wants to be the best, but there can only be one…that’s why they can it the best.

This week, IDC / EnergyInsoghts released their IDC Marketscape: Customer Care and Billing in Competitive Unbundled Energy Markets, 2012 Vendor Assessment (Vendor Assessment #EIOS03U) and ranked SAP as the leader in this year’s IDC Marketscape, citing SAP’s commitment to the utilities industry, native integration and current capabilities as key strengths towards our dominance in the Customer Relationship & Billing space. They also go on to state “SAP is the only solution deployed in all existing unbundled competitive energy markets.”

This marks the second consecutive time IDC has rated SAP as the market leader in the past 4 years IDC has conducted this study.

Added to this, Utilipoint had ranked SAP as the market leader for the past 4 times they conducted their CIS market studies.

The final coupe de grace, I have had the privilege to review the preliminary Gartner 2012 CIS magic quadrant, which is scheduled for release over the next few weeks, and I am proud to announce that SAP has again been determined the leader in Customer Relationship & Billing for the sixth consecutive year.

It’s always nice to be told you are the leader, but it is even better to be told again, and again, and again, and again, and again and again…..