2001 Annual Report Card Methodology

VARBusiness conducted the 16th Annual Report Card (ARC) survey in conjunction with Bernett Research Services, a Boston-based marketing research company. At the beginning of the year, VARBusiness conducted qualitative editorial research with a select group of manufacturers and developers to identify this year's ARC categories, criteria and products. Next, vendors were chosen based on market-share data from industry analysts including International Data Corp., Gartner Dataquest, Giga Information Group and Stanford Resources. VARBusiness notified participating companies by letter, asking them to submit a list of their solution-provider partners to be surveyed. The number of partners required was scaled to the size of the vendor's program, with a minimum requirement of 250 names. VARBusiness then compiled the master sample file. In the absence of the minimum requirement, a sample was acquired from VARBusiness' circulation list.

Solution providers were surveyed between May 21 and July 11, 2001. During that time, we completed 5,040 telephone interviews. The number of interviews per product category ranged between 243 and 349 respondents. Solution providers qualified on the basis of recommending, reselling or supporting the vendor's product or service. All respondents had been authorized by their vendors for at least six months. Solution providers rated the importance of 11 criteria in products/pricing, support and partnership, and then rated their satisfaction with their vendors for each criterion. Overall scores were weighted to reflect the relative importance of each criterion. The base scale for unweighted scores was 1 to 100. The higher the number the greater the degree of importance or satisfaction. New to 2001's design, loyalty scores were utilized to break first-place overall ties when necessary. This year, loyalty was factored into the weighted totals of the display technology and enterprise operating platform scores.

The methodology was devised using recommendations from vendors, reader advisory board members, analysts and staff.

2001 ARC Home Page