At Forrester, Ted Schadler is Vice President and Principal Analyst serving digital business professionals. He has 33 years of experience in the technology industry, analysing the effects of disruptive technologies on experiences and on business strategy and architecture. His research agenda focuses on digital transformation, experience-led transformation, commerce and digital experience service providers, and the future of services.
Schadler is the co-author of The Mobile Mind Shift: Engineer Your Business to Win in the Mobile Moment (Groundswell Press, June 2014). Companies have a choice: to be present in a customer's hand — or lose the mobile moment to a competitor or other distraction.
This book gives companies the guidance and tools to serve customers in their immediate context and moments of need: Continuously identify mobile moments, design mobile engagement, engineer solutions, and analyse to optimize outcomes. Now that it’s clear that most customers won’t download your app, it’s just as true for the mobile web — even more so for most brands.
Schadler is also the co-author of Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business (Harvard Business Review Press, September 2010). In this ground-breaking and still-current work, he analyses how important it is in the age of the customer for companies to empower employees with the tools and confidence to directly engage customers.
Previous Work Experience
Schadler’s work at Forrester spans 20 years, starting with the early days of the internet, open source, and web services. In 1999, he launched Forrester’s TechRankings™ product, now the Forrester Wave™. In 2003, he became a Forrester Bill Bluestein award winner; the award is granted annually to one of Forrester’s most influential analysts.
In 2005, Schadler analysed the impact of technology on customers’ online and mobile behaviour. He ran Forrester’s data business during this period. In 2009, he launched Forrester's Workforce Technology Assessment, the industry's first benchmark survey of workforce technology adoption. Since 2014, he has focused on digital business and digital experience delivery.
Prior to joining Forrester in April 1997, Schadler was a cofounder of Phios, an MIT spinoff. Before that, he worked for eight years as CTO and director of engineering for a software company serving the healthcare industry. Early in his career, after dropping out of MIT’s PhD physics program, he was a singer and bass player for Crash Davenport, a Maryland-based rock-and-roll band.
Education
Schadler has a master's degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also holds an MS in computer science from the University of Maryland and a BA with honours in physics from Swarthmore College.