Competition has driven many major IT vendors to new levels of customer service and effectiveness, according to our survey of senior IT execs. The question is, why didn't competition drive the rest of the market to improve?It's amazing how much better a vendor can get when new competitors turn up the heat. In previous vendor value surveys, outsourcers and telecom companies have been the lowest-scoring industries. Both industries are under attack—the U.S. outsourcing and consulting firms by Indian competitors, and telecom companies by cable and VoIP providers. Yet Accenture, Deloitte, Sprint Nextel and BellSouth have significantly improved their scores for business value and reliability.
Click here to download the full survey results.
That's just one of the key findings from our third annual vendor value survey. This year, nearly 900 executives rated their most important vendors on how well they delivered business value and reliability. We added two new categories—business intelligence systems and PDAs—and ten new vendors, and compared Indian offshore outsourcers to their American competitors.
Red Hat, Apple, Cisco and Dell top the list once more, but readers who look closer will identify other winners. Security vendor VeriSign made the top-ten list in its first time in our survey, joining McAfee and Symantec. Research in Motion came in eighth for providing value, while Symbol Technologies placed third for customer loyalty. Those Indian outsourcers? En masse, they offer better value and reliability than their U.S. counterparts.
Our study also identifies who is losing ground. Three vendors that have recently digested high-profile acquisitions—Symantec (which acquired Veritas), Oracle (which absorbed PeopleSoft) and AT&T (the new name for the combined SBC and AT&T)—saw their scores drop substantially. In total, thirteen companies saw their scores decline.
Click here to download the full survey results.
Compare your vendor's result to last year's: 2004: Are Your Vendors Providing More Value?
While this year's average score is 65.3 percent, two points higher than last year, that's hardly a rousing endorsement of the performance of the IT sector.
| Vendor Value 2005 |
| RANK |
|
SCORE |
| 1 |
Red Hat |
84.2% |
| 2 |
Apple Computer |
82.6 |
| 3 |
Cisco Systems |
81.4 |
| 4 |
Dell |
79.0 |
| 4 |
McAfee |
79.0 |
| 6 |
VeriSign |
75.8 |
| 7 |
Citrix Systems |
73.2 |
| 8 |
Symantec |
72.7 |
| 9 |
Hewlett-Packard |
71.7 |
| 10 |
IBM |
71.2 |
Percentage of IT executives rating vendor as excellent or good.
To download the survey results, click here.
Survey Guide:
Are Your Vendors Fighting to Keep You Happy?
CIOs Describe Like-Hate Relationships With Vendors
Winners and Losers: Survey Shows Shifts in Customer Esteem
Excelling in Spots: Customer Evaluations by Category
How The Survey Was Done
Want to see how your vendors did in last year's survey? Click here: Are Your Vendors Providing More Value?
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