HP-Compaq, NIIT Bounce Back

The Cirrus Image Index scores for the past six months are in, and only three

IT companies have made it to the Top 10 list of India Inc (which tracks around

1,100 companies). While Infosys recently relinquished its #1 rank and is now at

#2, Wipro stands at #4 and Microsoft at #10.

However, within the IT pack, these three occupied the top three position

during October 2001 to March 2002 period. While Infosys, did lose some shine

during February, after grabbing the top slot in December and maintaining the

status quo during January, it has been moving full steam ahead during the six

monthly appraisal and has emerged a clear #1. Overall Infosys gathered a huge

11,306 cumulative Cirrus image points (CIP) during this period. Wipro with 9,784

points and Microsoft with 8,631 points had to be satisfied with the #2 and #3

slot respectively. The big three together wrapped up more than 50% of the

cumulative image points garnered by the Top 10 in the six-month period ending

March 31, 2002.

Though Microsoft is #3 in the image ranking, it is, along with Infosys, the most visible IT company

In terms of a month-to-month performance, two companies–Compaq and HP–really

made a comeback by significantly increasing their CIP. While Compaq added 648

CIP during March, HP managed to garner 623 CIPs. This is also important because

the two had hogged up much of the news in end 2001 which were more negative in

nature, courtesy the proposed merger. Compaq had a bad November getting its

worst score in image points–74. Mergers and acquisitions continued to

contribute a huge 47.9% to its media coverage during this month. HP too swung in

and out of the news. In October, it had 162 visibility points, which reached

1,162 in November.

Compaq has the lowest QEI of 68 while HP is next with 80. At the top, Satyam and Wipro are tied with 129 points, while Microsoft follows at 123 and Infosys is at 121

Despite negative international news affecting both the companies’ quality

of exposure index (QE Index), the two stayed in news right through March. It was

a significant month with Walter Hewlett dragging HP to court over the proposed

merger. This affected QE ratting for both the companies in a big way. The good

news for HP, however, came with the shareholders giving a nod for the merger

(while the results were disputed then, the recent court verdict has finally made

it official). For Compaq, the month wasn’t bad. The news about its

shareholders approving the merger, and Institutional Shareholder Services, a

firm that advises people on voting advising shareholders to go along with the

merger improved its ratting. On the domestic front, Compaq upstaged IBM to

become the #1 laptop seller in India and thereby hogged lot of limelight. In

fact, HP and Compaq emerged as the second and fourth most visible companies,

respectively during March.

Not that other IT companies lagged behind in their communication activities.

Rather, most of the top brands scored very well on the overall QE Index. While,

Wipro and Satyam are tied at 129 each, TCS notched up 123 and Infosys 121.

Between the top two, Wipro has been the most consistent in maintaining its

stream of positive reportage.

In the past six months, the top three companies cornered 29,721 image points–58.3 % of the total 50,983 image points garnered by the Top 10 IT companies

The other company that really made a dramatic recovery amongst the Top 10 is

NIIT and it indeed needs a special mention. Staring out with a negative score of

-30 CIPs in October, the company closed the books in March with a cumulative

image score of 2572 points; its communication experts working full steam to

achieve this turnaround. December saw NIIT bagging the ‘outsourcing contract

of the year’ award, while the company also announced its plans to integrate

businesses and remodeling itself in other areas. All this fetched it additional

392 CIPs in the month.

March has been exceptionally good for NIIT. It started out with a poor QEI of —11 in October but climbed steadily, getting more and more positive coverage. It touched a high of 163 in March and its QEI for October-March stands at 97 Wipro has been the most consistent IT company, as far as maintaining positive coverage goes. It has the highest QEI (129) for the six-month period (Oct-March), and its lowest ever has been 119

The company got a bit of negative coverage in January with its net crashing

by 88%, but the news of its tie-up with IBM for their courses and a contract

from the Australian government helped the company neutralize the impact.

Besides, the news about its promoters increasing their stakes in the company to

38% also helped. March also turned out to be a pretty good month, with the

company acquiring US-based Osprey System and focusing on computer literacy

program for women.

SHUBHENDU PARTH In New Delhi



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