ViewSonic has made quite a turnaround in the Display category from 2009 when Samsung took top honors. This year, the vendor saw improvement in every criteria, and beat its two competitors, Samsung and NEC Display, in every category.
In Product Innovation, ViewSonic took the category with a score of 81.0, besting NEC Display's 80.8 and Samsung's 71.3. In Support,, it was even a higher margin of win for ViewSonic, which scored 66.8 vs. NEC's 63.7 and Samsung's 57.2. In Partnership, ViewSonic rang up 73.7, NEC 73.0 and Samsung 63.4.
The closest challenge came from NEC Display, which was not in last year's Annual Report Card. Of the 18 criteria, NEC won four: Product Compatibility and Ease of Integration, Quality of Field Management, Communication and Ease of Doing Business. It tied ViewSonic in the Manages Channel Conflict criterion. ViewSonic made huge strides in Quality, Richness of Product Features/Functionality and Marketability--three areas out of several in which the company saw gains of 10 points or more from 2009.
Every vendor wants to be No. 1, of course, but those that have been there before have a different type of longing for the winner's circle. ViewSonic is no stranger to being ranked tops in the category and, said Jeff Volpe, vice president and general manager for ViewSonic Americas, it has worked strenuously in the past 24 months to return.
"We went to a much more vertically tiered program that caters more specifically to certain types of VARs. We have a digital signage program, an education program, a government program, and so on. It helps the solution providers get the right kind of communication from our marketing department: The information is relevant to them. That tiered program is very different than our general program we've been running in years prior," Volpe said.
"We enhanced some promotional opportunities for VARs and solution providers as a result. We've launched an advisory council, which will further allow us to stay on the forefront on where solution provider businesses are going, not where they are today. We want to be ready with programs that facilitate that end," he said.
