Black Book Market Research
Black Book Market Research, also known as Black Book, is an international technology client satisfaction researcher, business services market pollster, and opinion research company headquartered in Clearwater, Florida. Black Book offers quantitative and qualitative research services for brand, product and service awareness tracking. Top ranked vendors in over 100 functional business categories are awarded the Black Book seal, which the vendors can display to promote their client service delivery.
History
Black Book was founded in 2000 by Douglas Brown and Scott Wilson. First identified as ChiefResourceOfficer.com, Inc., Black Book’s original mission was to provide client experience and customer satisfaction feedback by polling the perceptions of global stakeholders in the outsourcing and offshoring industries.
In 2005, founders Brown and Wilson co-authored the bestselling business book, “The Black Book of Outsourcing” published by John Wiley and Sons. The book was updated in 2009 and published in digital version in 2012. The book is available in seven languages around the globe, and is ranked #70 on the all time "Top 100 Best Books for Managers, Leaders & Humans", a list created by global business journalists using three different criteria: the number of Amazon reviews, the average Amazon rating, and the total number of Google hits.
Also in 2005, ChiefResourceOfficer.com Inc. began doing business as The Black Book of Outsourcing, a business unit launched to provide outsourcing and offshoring vendor performance reports via widely distributed user surveys. Insight was collected from more than 80,000 users of outsourced services into the performance and service satisfaction of nearly 1,100 service vendors worldwide.
The Black Book of Outsourcing was acquired in 2009 by London, UK Informa Business Intelligence subsidiary Datamonitor, Ltd. The Black Book of Outsourcing business unit was launched publicly, then acquired by Datamonitor’s parent company, Informa Business Intelligence. The Black Book of Outsourcing was renamed Ovum Orbys Black Book of Outsourcing under Datamonitor. In 2012, Brown and Wilson re-acquired The Black Book of Outsourcing” brand and ownership rights back from Informa, and re-established its headquarters from London UK to Florida USA.
In 2010, Black Book’s Douglas Brown independently founded Black Book Rankings, a market research firm focused on user satisfaction within the healthcare industry’s technology and service vendor sector.
In 2012, the names of all the independent business units were simplified to Black Book, and Black Book was issued a U.S. trademark for business market research products. In 2013, Black Book issued its first outsourcing user survey report since 2011, re-launching the division again under Brown and Wilson.
Black Book's 2013 survey of top EHR vendors received coverage for declaring 2013 the year of the EHR vendor replacement, citing the 25% of respondents who replied that they were actively seeking a new EHR provider.
Also in 2013, Black Book began doing private polls for U.S. News & World Report.
Divisions
The Black Book Market Research company consists of:
- The Black Book of Outsourcing LLC (Outsourcing, Offshoring and Business Services);
- Black Book Rankings (Healthcare, Hospitals, Physician Groups, Pharmaceutical companies, and Managed Care/Health Insurance);
- Black Book Education (Higher Education);
- Black Book Polls (Government, Politics, Environmental and Non-Profits) ; and
- Black Book Research LLC (Investments & Media).
All five Black Book business units are independently managed and owned divisions.
Target markets
Black Book's competitive research and analysis are targeted at CIOs and senior operations leaders in healthcare, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, biomedical, managed care, insurance, government agencies, high-tech enterprises, higher education, professional services firms, media and technology investors. Black Book clients include large and midmarket corporations, small businesses, government agencies, technology companies, corporate analyst/public relations and marketing divisions, all buyers of technology products and services, and the investment community.
Products and services
Black Book issues annual client experience and satisfaction rankings for the following healthcare technology fields:
- Accountable care organizations (ACO)
- Ambulatory/Physician Electronic health record (EHR)
- Health Information Exchange (HIE)
- Hospital /Inpatient EHR
- e-prescribing and Computerized physician order entry (CPOE)
- Clinical Systems
- Finance and Revenue Cycle
- Outsourcing and Managed Services
- Business Services
The Black Book of Outsourcing issues annual domestic and international customer satisfaction rankings for several service segments, including Finance and Accounting, Document Processing, Legal Services, Information Technology, Human Resources, Procurement, Call Centers, and Business Processes in 24 industries including Banking, Energy, Telecommunications, Government, Entertainment, Media, Publishing, Insurance, Retail, Utilities and Manufacturing.
Research methodology
Black Book invites individual users to participate in their crowdsourced service and product satisfaction surveys each year. Online, smart phone, kiosk and telephone surveys are conducted on key performance indicators, centered on the perceptions and opinions of verified users.
In the methodology section for their 2014 rankings survey entitled Top Ambulatory Electronic Health Records Vendors, Black Book wrote that over 380,000 practice management and physician leaders and other users ranking from hospital executives, clinicians, IT specialists and front-line implementation veterans were invited to participate in the satisfaction survey. Non-invitation receiving participants must complete a verifiable profile, utilize valid corporate email address and are then included as well.
Press coverage
Black Book's research and rankings have been mentioned and referenced by the Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report, CIO magazine, The New York Times, and Newsweek.