Satisfaction Survey: What VARs Really Think of Their Vendors

Success in the public-sector channel is all about pricing. Solution providers that can deliver IT goods and services at the lowest cost are typically the ones that win contracts with government agencies. No news there.

So it should come as no surprise that solution providers are most satisfied with vendors that provide the best support for their government business. GovernmentVAR took a second look at its Government Satisfaction Study, originally published in December 2006, and found some new, interesting statistics and insights into how solution providers view their vendor partners. By and large, vendors need to do a lot more work to earn the satisfaction and, consequently, loyalty of their solution providers.

GovernmentVAR re-examined the study results, dividing vendors into two categories--tier-one and tier-two--based on the number of responses they received in the survey.

Tier-one vendors Adobe, APC, Intel, Microsoft and ViewSonic earned the highest ratings among solution providers for overall satisfaction with their public-sector channel programs, although none of them earned top marks from more than 55 percent of respondents. And only Adobe earned solid ratings in three critical areas--contracting support, deal registration and marketing.

Among the tier-two vendors, AMD, Network Appliance and Trend Micro earned top satisfaction ratings from solution providers; none, however, broke the 50 percent barrier. Printer vendor Ricoh earned the highest satisfaction ratings for contracting (57 percent) and marketing support (50 percent), while Hitachi, at 53 percent, topped the list for deal registration.

On the whole, VAR satisfaction with vendors' programs was relatively low. No vendor earned top marks from more than 55 percent of solution providers. Likewise, many vendors--including Apple, Citrix Systems, Samsung, SonicWall and Symbol--received top scores from less than 30 percent of the study's participants.

The weakest satisfaction category was marketing support. Among tier-one vendors, 3Com, Adobe and IBM earned the highest scores; Linksys, APC, Cisco Systems and Citrix earned the lowest.

The tier-two vendors fared slightly better in marketing, with Ricoh, Trend Micro and NetApp earning top scores from roughly half of the respondents. Conversely, several vendors failed to earn top scores from more than 20 percent. Those included EMC, Lexmark, Check Point Software Technologies and Panasonic.

In deal registration, important for protecting solution providers that source their own deals and then bring them to integrators, the satisfaction scores were nothing to rave about either. 3Com scored the highest, winning the approval of 45 percent of VARs, but Oracle, Seagate, Intel, Cisco, McAfee and Microsoft earned top satisfaction ratings from only 44 percent of respondents.

Satisfaction ratings for deal registration were a bit more evenly distributed among the tier-two vendors. Hitachi earned high honors from 53 percent of solution providers, followed closely by Juniper Networks at 52 percent and NetApp at 50 percent. Only one vendor, Novell, failed to earn high satisfaction ratings from more than 20 percent, and only two others, SonicWall and Fujitsu, failed to break the 30 percent mark.

Vendors scored highest in contracting support to solution providers. Hewlett-Packard earned high scores from 51 percent of solution providers, followed by Adobe and Cisco (49 percent each), and McAfee and IBM (46 percent each). Intel earned top-notch marks from only 35 percent of solution providers.

Again, Ricoh led the way among tier-two vendors, earning high marks among 57 percent of solution providers. Toshiba, CA and Hitachi tied for the second-highest rating (50 percent), and Xerox placed third with 48 percent. Only Apple failed to earn top marks from more than 24 percent of solution providers.

Nearly 43 percent of public-sector VARs say they want more current and accurate pricing from vendors; 37 percent want more competitive pricing; and 34 percent seek better pricing and discounts.

Solution providers also said they want more strategic support from their vendors. Half of those surveyed said vendors need to be better at meeting GSA requirements.

RESEARCH: A closer look at the numbers