Managed Services : Managed System Services

Like most other categories in the managed services segment, the managed

systems services category also has a lot of vendors fighting it out to gain a

spot in the User's Choice club. Only 5 brands made it to the elite club this

year, with HP claiming the top spot and IBM following at a distant second. The

remaing three, HCL, Wipro, and CMS were far behind IBM.

41% of repondents were subscribing to HP's system services, followed by IBM

at 24%. HP also enjoys the highest top of mind recall with 48% of respondents

naming it in context of managed system services.

Users' Choice Club 2010

HP and IBM have retained their 2009 positions, while HCL Info has replaced Wipro at 3rd position.

Future Brand Preference Reasons

Product reliability is the biggest reason given by users likely to opt for services from the top two brands.

In brand preference, product reliability was the biggest of all four reasons

for users to consider shifting to the top two brands in the near future,

followed by initial price, after sales support/service, and brand name as the

last reason. It seems brand name doesn't hold much merit when users choose a

brand for managed system services.

HP has very strong brand perception across eight industries we went to, as

well as all the four geographic zones. IBM was very strong in the manufacturing

segment and strong in the remaining industries. IT was very strong in both east

and west, and a little weak in north and south in managed system services. The

remaining brands are either weak or very weak across the board.

Brand Loyalty 2010 vs 2009

HP saw the lowest brand loyalty score, which has declined by 15% over the last year. Wipro saw the biggest gain here.

Wipro enjoys the highest brand loyalty, with 71% of the respondents who were

using its services saying that they were likely to continue using it in the

future as well. HCL had the second highest brand loyalty, followed by CMS, IBM,

and HP. This should obviously be of concern to the top two brands. In fact,

HP has seen a decline in brand loyalty over last year. CMS was the only other

brand to witness a decline, as the remaining three brands enjoyed slight gains

in brand loyalty score.