Behind the Scenes of Juniper Research’s Competitor Leaderboard

April 2024

Fintech & Payments

Cara Malone

Senior Research Analyst

With many Juniper Research reports comes a ‘Competitor Leaderboard’. The Competitor Leaderboard is a vendor positioning tool that independently ranks companies that we see as the leading vendors in market, typically including the top 15-20, in a specific industry.

Here we'll talk you through how we created one of our most recent Competitor Leaderboards from the Digital Money Transfer and Remittances report. This particular Competitor Leaderboard focused on providers of digital money transfer platforms. Digital money transfer platforms enable the transfer of money from one payment account to another over a digital platform, such as mobile wallets.

Understanding the Positioning within a Competitor Leaderboard

The Competitor Leaderboard works off of two axes. One is the x-axis, which assess the capacity and capability of a company or vendor in a specific sector, in this case digital money transfer platform provision. The other is the y-axis, which focuses on the product and positioning of the solution or product a company provides. Pictured below is the most recent Competitor Leaderboard for digital money transfer platform providers. 

Source: Juniper Research

The further right a company is on the x-axis, the higher it scored in regards to criteria focused on capacity and capability. The higher up a company is on the y-axis, the greater it scored on criteria relating to the product or solution it provides, not only currently but also in regards to future prospects. It does not suggest that any single cell in the Leaderboard implies in any way that a group of vendors is more advantageously positioned than another group, just differently positioned.

In the case of this Competitor Leaderboard, Comviva scored the best within the product and positioning category, due to its product offering’s strength, and the creativity and innovation it shows in the space. However, due to some of its competitors being well-known global companies, such as Mastercard and Visa, its capacity and capability are being challenged.

Those that are positioned in the established leaders segment had strong solutions that not only focus on the current state of the market, but also the future, taking advantage of trends in this ever-evolving space. Due to the fact that basic money transfer offerings are no longer piquing consumers’ interests, providers need to take advantage of additional services for both merchants and consumers, examples of these include AI and financial management tools.

These leading vendors are also taking into consideration the need for their solutions to be easily upgradable and deployable in order to cover expanding customer wants and new geographies, especially with the continuing rise in number of digital remittances.

Criteria Analysed within a Competitor Leaderboard

For each Competitor Leaderboard there are 10 criteria that are analysed, five within the capability and capacity category, and five within the product and positioning category. These criteria vary depending on the sector being analysed, choosing the most appropriate in regards to what is happening within the market.

The criteria are weighted against one another to produce a more accurate scoring matrix that better reflects the state of the market. Some of the criteria for the digital money transfer include:

·        Operations and Geographical Spread – The geographical reach of the company as measured by its total number of offices worldwide.

·        Service Offering Strength – The range of features the vendor provides within digital money transfer, and the depth of these features.

·        Future Business Prospects – The impact of the company’s structure and its recent actions on its future success in the digital money transfer market.

How to Get Involved in Juniper Research’s Competitor Leaderboard

How does Juniper Research gather the information needed for a Competitor Leaderboard?

In order to gather the information and data required to assess the criteria within the Competitor Leaderboard, Juniper Research uses a combination of desk-based research and interviews. The desk-based research can only go so far, due the fact in some cases, there is limited publicly available information. This is where interviews, also known as briefings, can help. All companies are given the opportunity to participate in a briefing and fill in an RFI (Request for Information). In these briefings, they can provide information they wish to share in relation to not only current and future products or solutions, but also their view surrounding the market as it stands, and where it is anticipated to go in the future.