KEY FINDINGS

 

It’s not just the big guys that matter
When we talk about IT suppliers, it is easy to focus on the few big names that dominate the landscape – organisations such as Microsoft, IBM, Dell and so on. However, the size, richness and diversity of the supplier community comes into sharp focus from this study. When IT buyers and users were asked to highlight suppliers that stood out in 2005 as part of a recent online survey conducted via The Register, over 550 different organisations were named within 1,800 nominations.

 

The channel is the face of the IT industry to most buyers
Most of the names that appear are from the myriad of suppliers which make up what is affectionately known in the industry as “the channel” – resellers, retailers, etc. Indeed, some pretty big manufacturers, especially those who deal predominantly through the channel, like Cisco, get hardly any mention at all.

 

Sun stands out positively from the most frequently mentioned manufacturers
Of the larger manufacturers who actually do receive a significant number of mentions, the top 5 being Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft and Sun in terms of frequency, the impression of Sun is the most consistently positive. 67% of those who mention Sun do so in a positive manner, compared to around 40% positive nominations for its closest Top 5 rival, IBM.

 

Senior people speak out much more for IBM and Microsoft
Perceptions vary dramatically by job function for some suppliers. If you are in a management position, for example, you are three times more likely to be impressed by IBM than if you are in operations and support. Those in management roles are also much more likely to favour Microsoft. We wouldn’t like to comment on whether the senior guys see some additional strategic value with these vendors or have simply been influenced more by marketing and messaging targeted directly at executives and decision makers.

 

Differentiating between the larger retailers and resellers is hard
The top five resellers and retailers respondents mention are eBuyer, Dabs, Scan, Insight and Overclockers. None of these really stand out differently from the others in terms of performance, however, with relatively little variation in the proportion of positive and negative nominations within this group.

Service is the biggest driver of both positive and negative perceptions
Whilst things like price, quality of goods, features and functionality are important, these are not the factors that typically make suppliers stand out the most. Analysis of freeform responses from survey participants reveals the recurring themes of customer service quality and efficiency of order processing and delivery as the two strongest influencers of perceptions. Suppliers who consistently get these right tend to stand out positively, and those that do not are highlighted negatively. This is probably the most significant finding from this study for suppliers who want to improve their position with customers.