Data Center Hosting Provider

This is a new category that we've added to the Most Wanted IT Brands analysis
this time. The number of data centers is increasing in the country, and
companies have a lot of interest in hosting various services with them. Around
62% of the respondents to our survey said that they're likely to choose a data
center hosting provider in the coming 3 months, and a nearly equal percentage of
them saying that they already host some of their services with one. At an
overall level, all brands seem to be gaining pull, but need to put in more
effort in order to become more persuasive. One more interesting thing we
observed in this segment is that brand loyalties amongst the users of data
center hosting providers is very high. Very few people actually switch out. This
is interesting but not surprising, because such services are long term
contracts, which take a long time to get in place, making it very difficult to
shift out.

Three brands managed to gather sufficient votes for us to analyze in the
survey this time. Out of these, VSNL is the most future ready brand. As it's the
oldest player in the game, it enjoys the highest degree of persuation. Most of
the CIOs who recall it on top of mind also say that they're likely to use its
data centre hosting services. Its brand pull situation however, is a concern
area. Though there are usres likely to switch to it, there are more users
switching out of it. Maybe it's because there are better facilities coming up
for data center hosting, which are giving VSNL competition. VSNL enjoys a brand
loyalty of 78% amongst its existing users, with only 5% users likely to switch
to other brands, and another 17% who're not sure which brand to shift to.

Just behind VSNL is Sify, which is another brand that's been in the market
long enough to understand its ups and downs. It is however far behind VSNL with
a future readiness indes of 38%. It's the third most persuasive brand of the
lot, and does need to work toward improving the same. The same goes for its
brand pull as well, where though there are more users likely to switch in to it
than switch out, the number needs to ramp up significantly.

Even the brand loyalty figures for Sify aren't as good as the other players.
It has 47% brand loyalty, but there's a catch. Currently, none of its existing
users said that they're likely to move out of it. There is however, a massive
53% of the respondents who are not sure whhich brand to switch out to. So Sify
should try and make the best of this situation before competition does.

At a distant number three is Reliance Infocomm with a relative future readiness
index of 35. It's the second most persuasive brand of the lot, and records the
highest brand pull. Its brand pull is also better than Sify's at 56%, with only
6% users who're likley to switch to other brands and another 38% who are not
sure.