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Like desktops, the key factor that occupies the CIO’s mind during the
purchase process for notebooks is the product itself and the CIO is also
influenced by the pre-sales and marketing efforts of the vendors. And the
clichй continues, even when rephrased it would still mean that competition is very tough. IBM retains the
top position in this category but the margin is thin.
And very close behind IBM
is the HP-Compaq combine, which have dislodged Toshiba from the second spot.
Again the difference in the satisfaction scores is thin. Incidentally, HP did
feature last year and Compaq actually occupied the third spot. Toshiba now
stands a notch lower at the third position.
The CIO despite placing the least importance on the price and commercial
terms offered incidentally is the least satisfied with this parameter. A
surprising development from last year is that the importance placed on pre-sales
and marketing from occupying a position of least importance is the second most
important factor today. A plausible explanation is that rapidly changing
technology is burying even the well-informed CIO under a mountain of
information.
| The Notebooks Scorecard | ||
| 2003 | 2004 | |
| IBM | 2 | 1 |
| HP—Compaq | 3 | 2 |
| Toshiba | 1 | 3 |
| Dell | NA | 4 |
| Acer | NA | 5 |
The CIO is inundated with numerous choices concerning products, applications,
services and you name it. Able marketers with a firm grasp about the abilities
and weaknesses of their products can help make life easy even for an informed
customer. It is no coincidence then that the entire world is now talking about
consultative selling. And, it is here that the marketing skills
bulwarked with the right product can make a difference. While the marketer
will have little control in sustaining product differentiation, the value that
they bring to the table will largely stem from the ability to retrofit existing
products to tailor new solutions.
| Notebooks: How CIOs Rate the Vendors | ||||||||
| Industry | HP-Compaq | IBM | Acer | Toshiba | Dell | |||
| Product | ||||||||
| Product reliability | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 3.9 | 4.1 | 3.9 | ||
| Warranty and replacement | 4 | 4 | 4.1 | 3.7 | 4 | 3.9 | ||
| Technology | 4 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 3.7 | 4 | 4 | ||
| Maintenance | 3.9 | 4 | 4 | 3.6 | 3.9 | 3.8 | ||
| Pre-Sales & Marketing | ||||||||
| Responsiveness to specific requirement | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.9 | ||
| Final product delivered vs needs specified | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.9 | 3.9 | ||
| Proactiveness | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 3.7 | ||
| Quality of interaction | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3.8 | 4 | 3.9 | ||
| Dataquest-IDC India: Customer Satisfaction Audit 2004 | ||||||||
| ||||||||
Toshiba’s number three position could largely be explained because of
marginally lower-than-average satisfaction scores on two key parameters –
product features and pre-sales and marketing. While product itself includes
sub-parameters like reliability, performance, maintenance, ease-of-use and
warranty replacement schemes; pre-sales and marketing includes sub-parameters
like responsiveness to specific requirement, domain knowledge, proactiveness in
understanding needs and quality of interaction.
| How the Brands Fared | |||||||||
| Industry | IBM | HP-Compaq | Toshiba | Dell | Acer | ||||
| Product (100) | 79.8 | 80.7 | 80.9 | 79.5 | 78.8 | 74.7 | |||
| Pre sales and marketing (78) | 77.6 | 78.4 | 78.0 | 77.2 | 76.8 | 74.0 | |||
| Delivery and installation (70) | 77.6 | 78.1 | 78.1 | 78.2 | 74.6 | 80.0 | |||
| Post sales support (68) | 75.7 | 76 | 75.4 | 76.6 | 74.5 | 74.3 | |||
| Price and commercial (54) | 75.2 | 75.5 | 75 | 76.0 | 73.9 | 74.4 | |||
| |||||||||
However, Toshiba’s performance on the price-product parity and commercial
terms offered beats the industry average but that hardly helps Toshiba’s cause
for the CIO relatively does not place as much importance on this parameter.