Hp is the channel champ

The results of the 7th Channel Satisfaction Survey commissioned by DQ
Channels and conducted by IDC India are out. The inclusion of new product
categories, gave opportunity to some of the new vendors to walk away with the
awards.

In a year when majority of the companies were busy trying to cut down their
losses and increase their profits, while maintaining a low key profile, many
changes were visible in the expectations and experiences of the Indian channel
community. This fraternity wanted the vendors to support them at a time when
their own customers were shying away from purchases and when they were having
difficulty in keeping costs down.

The vendors met the expectations and managed to fulfill their channel's
wishes. These vendors came up as toppers in the Channel Satisfaction Survey,
which was commissioned and conducted by DQ Channels and IDC India, respectively.
Of these vendors, few had featured as winners in the last year as well.

The Channel Satisfaction Survey was started by DQ Channels seven years ago
with an objective to find out who are the vendors with whom the partners are
most comfortable doing business with. This is based on their business practices
and who do they perceive are the leaders in various product categories. A
vendor's satisfaction is termed as vendor's performance, which is based on a
list of important parameters, where both performance and importance are
perceived by the partners.

At a time when vendors are trying their best to gather their partners closer
to them, in a bid to weather the slowdown, it becomes very critical for them to
know just how satisfied are the partners with their business policies and
practices, making this survey all the more crucial while planning their business
strategies. This is because winning the channel's confidence is challenging and
at the same time a pertinent task for all vendors.

In a year when majority of the companies were busy trying to cut down their
losses and increase their profits, while maintaining a low key profile, many
changes were visible in the expectations and experiences of the Indian channel
community. This fraternity wanted the vendors to support them at a time when
their own customers were shying away from purchases and when they were having
difficulty in keeping costs down.

The vendors met the expectations and managed to fulfill their channel's
wishes. These vendors came up as toppers in the Channel Satisfaction Survey,
which was commissioned and conducted by DQ Channels and IDC India, respectively.
Of these vendors, few had featured as winners in the last year as well.

The Channel Satisfaction Survey was started by DQ Channels seven years ago
with an objective to find out who are the vendors with whom the partners are
most comfortable doing business with. This is based on their business practices
and who do they perceive are the leaders in various product categories. A
vendor's satisfaction is termed as vendor's performance, which is based on a
list of important parameters, where both performance and importance are
perceived by the partners.

At a time when vendors are trying their best to gather their partners closer
to them, in a bid to weather the slowdown, it becomes very critical for them to
know just how satisfied are the partners with their business policies and
practices, making this survey all the more crucial while planning their business
strategies. This is because winning the channel's confidence is challenging and
at the same time a pertinent task for all vendors.

The other objective of the survey is to identify attributes that the channel
community reckons as the most important determinants of satisfaction. The
fulfillment of these attributes would help in determining, which companies the
channel has complete faith in when it comes to choosing their vendors.

In order to determine this, IDC India undertook a quantitative research
technique through face-to-face structured interview mode for addressing the
identified objectives. The survey was covered over a span of 19 cities amongst
distributors, resellers and solution providers.

IDC India's questionnaire focused upon the satisfaction of the partners with
their vendors on several parameters on a three-point scale. To measure the
satisfaction of the distributor/reseller segment at a particular time, one broad
product category was selected and the satisfaction for the top two vendors,
falling into each of that product category, was measured.

The satisfaction measurement results were factored with the importance that
respondents attach to each criterion, which is used for evaluation. Since one
channel partner can often deal with two vendors for a single product, the sample
size of the respondents in a particular category could be more than the total
base of the survey.

On the basis of the satisfaction scores, highest gaining vendors were awarded
in each product category. For selecting the best vendors in a product category,
respondents were asked to choose a strong reason from a list of generic reasons.

IDC India also tried to understand the importance, which respondents attach
to each criterion that is used for evaluation. These criteria were: product
quality, brand image, after sales support, marketing support, commercial terms,
relationship management and online support. The 'brand image' category was
considered to be an intangible parameter in order to determine justly, and hence
was dropped out from the survey.

A total of 574 channel partners were polled for the survey across 19 cities,
of which 29 percent were from West, 30 percent were from South, 28 percent were
from North while the remainder 13 percent were from East.