Research: Vendor Value 2003

When IT professionals go shopping, they check how competing IT products compare with one another. But when CIOs buy equipment, engage a consultant or license software, they look at the big picture: Does the vendor's offering provide the business value they are looking for? Will it deliver the ROI they expect, and help solve the business problem that's driving the purchase? IT executives consider reliability too: Does the vendor meet its commitments, respond quickly to customer needs, and provide top quality? To help answer these questions, CIO Insight is introducing our first-ever Vendor Value Study. Instead of focusing on particular products, we asked CIOs to rate the vendors they've worked with in the past 12 months for business value and reliability. All in all, nearly 1,300 senior IT executives answered our call, rating vendors as "excellent," "good," "fair" or "poor" in seven different categories, and revealing whether they would continue to work with each of their vendors if they had a choice.

Our special report begins by providing ratings for 41 product and service vendors, including our top ten vendors below. It continues by singling out which vendors received the most "excellent" and "poor" scores, and which ones have earned the highest and lowest customer loyalty ratings. We also compare competing vendors and list the ones that do better with larger or smaller companies.

Our methodology has some limits: It measures only the perceptions of U.S.-based IT executives. It does not rate or quantify the performance of any particular product or service offering or family of offerings, or how well a vendor handles a particular customer service-related issue. But our survey can help IT executives see how their peers view the business value and reliability of many widely used IT vendors.