Methodology

This year marks our eighth annual VARBusiness 500, and our 14th ranking of the largest solution providers, consultants, integrators and services companies in North America.

VARBusiness partnered with Harte-Hanks, a San Antonio-based firm that specializes in technology-focused research for North American companies. VARBusiness designed the survey, and Harte-Hanks was commissioned to assist with the data collection. Harte-Hanks began the project by matching last year's VARBusiness 500 list to its branded Channel Database of more than 30,000 companies. Harte-Hanks conducted initial telephone interviews during March and April, making approximately 24,000 calls among 3,500 unique solution providers.

Concurrent to administering the telephone interviews, VARBusiness e-mailed a hotlink to the survey site to all of the VARBusiness 500 companies on last year's list, plus more than 10,000 other potential prospects, including candidates from its circulation file. VARBusiness also worked closely with several leading technology vendors who posted 500 survey hotlinks on their partner sites to identify companies from all aspects of the IT solution-provider community.

All responses to the survey were analyzed for the company's ability to qualify for this year's VARBusiness 500 ranking. From those qualified responses, any missing data was obtained in a follow-up telephone interview or via the Internet. Follow-up research continued through May. For public companies, research included going through all available financial statements and SEC documents to identify the appropriate revenue. For private firms, research included Internet searches, interviews, as well as confirmation letters and e-mails from company executives.

More than 670 VARBusiness 500 finalists were ranked according to their fiscal year 2001 revenues, which was calculated by factoring out non-solution-provider and non-computer-related revenue. For non-self-administered surveys, Harte-Hanks called those companies for confirmation of their revenues. In the end, 55 percent of the interviews were collected by phone, and the remaining 45 percent were collected via the Internet.