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A product or service offering is the key satisfaction derivative for the CIO.
Vendors will need to fulfill at least that basic satisfaction. However, the key
differential in satisfaction or that extra mile satisfaction is going to come
from the extra mile post sales experience in terms of services and support
that the vendors are able to provide to customers.
This is reflected in the findings of the DQIDC CSA2008 survey, where, in at
least four of the eight segments being surveyed, post sales service/post
contract stage experience emerged as the second most important satisfaction
parameter for the enterprise user. This is also the sign of growing market
maturity as it graduates beyond the initial phase of deployment, implementation,
and adoption. It is gradually going to become critical for the vendors to
re-align their customer satisfaction strategies with this imperative.
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Vendor Performance
Having a higher market share does not necessarily mean higher customer
satisfaction. There are a few exceptions like Cisco in networking products, HP
in laser printers and MFDs, and HP in notebooks. However, the instances proving
the disjoint are far too many this year. Take for instance Microsoft Business
Solutions and SAP in the case of enterprise applications; Sun in enterprise
storage; CMS and HP in IT Services; 3Com in networking products; and Sun again
in servers.
Microsoft edged past SAP to become the enterprise applications vendor that
CIOs are most satisfied with. While popular perception, going by market share,
would have sided with SAP, CIOs obviously feel otherwise. Similarly, in case of
IT services, while CMS went up 3 ranks, the global MNC, HP dropped an equal
number to end up at #6.
The big IT services vendors like Wipro, TCS/CMC, IBM, and HP fail to make it
to the top three. 3Com pushed up two ranks in the networking segment, ending a
mere 0.4 points below the market share leader Cisco. Sun had a field day in both
servers and storage, where it is a joint winner with EMC.
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Methodology: DQ-IDC CSA 2008 |
| The sixth
Dataquest-IDC survey on Enterprises Customer Satisfaction with IT products
and suppliers is compiled on the basis of methodology jointly decided by IDC
India and Dataquest. The IDC team was led by Shailendra Gupta, and assisted
by Arpan Gupta. IDC India conducted the
survey among 326 CIOs of 1,000 large enterprises (from ET 500, BW 500, or BS
1000 lists) this year, with the same objectives as that of DQ-IDC CSA 07,
which were: to develop brand scores of customer satisfaction for different
product and service categories, and to identify functional and service
attributes that drive customer satisfaction.
The survey covered large enterprises across
various verticals like Manufacturing, BFSI, IT/ITeS, Telecom and Other
Services and the Government. The survey was spread across ten citiesDelhi,
Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore
and Chandigarh. The survey covered Desktops, Notebooks, Servers, Enterprise
Applications (SCM, CRM, ERP), IT Services (integrated and outsourced
services), Networking Products, Laser Printers & MFDs, and Enterprise
Hardware Storage (SAN, NAS). In each category, a minimum sample size for
each brand was identified using the understanding of the market. CIOs were
asked to rate the level of satisfaction on each of the parameters and
sub-parameters on a five-point scale, depending on the usage of the product
or service. Hence, each CIO could give multiple responses. That explains the
different bases of responses in each individual category.
IDC India derived the importance of each of
the parameters from the satisfaction scores, which were used as weights for
each of the sub-parameters. To arrive at overall satisfaction scores of
different products and services, IDC India measured satisfaction against
each of these importance parameters and arrived at weighted scores of
satisfaction, on a maximum possible total of 100, which makes all the
parameters and brands comparable within their scope. |
A plausible explanation for this can be the theory that greater the market
standing of the vendor greater the expectations, setting a higher bar for
satisfaction. And, by the same logic, the next in line vendors are able to
exceed expectations because the bar is set low for them.
There is also a possibility of erosion of customer satisfaction as companies
grow bigger and expand their footprint because not all can cope with pressure.
Simultaneous growth in marketing and customer focused initiatives can arrest
this erosion. Microsoft and Sun have aggressively expanded into the tier-2 and
tier-3 cities over the last year and a half, which gave them the proximity to
better cater to customers.
A common thread running through most of the segments is the sharp rise and
fall in vendor ranks. IT services emerges as one of the most dynamic and
volatile segments with some major upheavals. Apart from CMS gain and HPs loss
of 3 ranks each, other cases in point are Sify moving up 3 ranks and HCL
Infosystems and Wipro gaining and losing, respectively, 2 ranks each.
While 3Com and Microsoft Business Solutions gained 2 ranks each in the
networking and enterprise applications segments, Sun made hay with a 3 rank gain
in the server segment. On the other hand, both notebooks and desktops were
equally volatile with Dell gaining 4 ranks (from 6 to 2) in the former, and
Lenovo making the same jump to be the topmost vendor in desktops. The big upset
in desktops was Wipro, which lost 4 ranks to become the second lowest ranked on
customer satisfaction.
Performance Barometer
While enterprise applications was the front runner on the overall
satisfaction score, IT services got the lowest score. Incidentally, the rise in
satisfaction is the highest with IT services (at 1.60% growth in satisfaction)
and enterprise applications vendors (at 1.79% growth), which were the worst hit
in last years dip.
The improvement in satisfaction levels notwithstanding, there remain common
concerns for CIOs when it comes to satisfaction with vendors. These include
training/demonstration/hand holding, vendor expertise, availability of spare
parts, clarity of pricing contracts, domain knowledge, interaction with the
service team, total cost of ownership, credit facility received, routine checks,
responsiveness and availability of service personnel, ease/convenience of
installation, and adherence to SLAs.
Shipra Malhotra
shipram@cybermedia.co.in
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