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Survey Methodology
Our survey this year focuses on enterprise and consumer segments, wherein we've covered 420 key IT decision makers from top 1,000 companies in India. Plus, we've surveyed 1108 consumers for the consumer segment of the survey.
Mrutyunjay Mishra, JuxtConsult
Friday, September 05, 2008
Our methodology remains the same as last year. The fist question we've asked
each respondent is on 'top of mind recall' for each category. The other two
questions remain the same as last year, wherein the second asks them for their
'most likely' choice of the primary brand if they were to buy the same category
of products in the coming six months and the third asking them to identify the
'primary' brand they currently 'own' for the same product category.
That's why this time our story has focused on both factors. We first delve
into the perceptions that different people have about various IT brands with our
Most Wanted IT Brands survey. Next, we've done a comprehensive buying guide of
various enterprise IT products and services, which gets into the physical
aspects of various brand categories. Plus, on popular demand, we've also revived
the PCQuest Users' Choice Awards. This time, the Users' Choice awards have been
awarded to the most future ready brands. The meaning of this term has been
explained in our survey methodology.
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What's different this time?
There are lots of new things we've done this time to make the survey more
exciting, interesting, and meaningful for our readers. For one, we've added five
new categories that are of interest to IT decision makers, up from 21 that we
analyzed last year. Plus, we've also tracked 17 consumer IT brands categories as
well. This time, we've surveyed 420 IT decision makers of leading Indian
enterprises and 1100 consumers from across the country.
This survey is useful for IT decision makers as well as consumers of IT
products and services alike. That's because it tells you the best IT brands out
there not based on any test results, but based on what your own peers are
thinking about them. The base for the survey remains the same. All respondents
are asked three basic questions. First, they're asked to name the first brand
that comes to their minds when they think of a particular category of products,
solutions, or services. Next, they tell which brand do they currently own in
that category, and finally which brand are they likely to purchase in the next
three months. All questions are open-ended, meaning they don't get any list of
brands to choose from. The enterprise survey was done through personal
one-on-one meetings, while the consumer survey was conducted online.
The survey results were used to determine the brand persuasiveness, pull, and
loyalty of each brand. These were then used to predict the future readiness of
each brand. The most future ready brand of the lot was also declared the Users'
Choice winner for that category. The results of the Users' Choice awards are
fairly interesting. Many dark horses have emerged from different categories.
More on this in the survey methodology.
Key Insights into the survey
- Besides the laws of physics, there's one more law that governs the
future readiness of a brand-new markets. Unless a brand is able to
identify new opportunities and markets and make its presence felt there,
it will just not be able to grow. That's why this time, a significant part
of our enterprise survey database came from sunrise industries-retail,
healthcare and pharma, real estate, education, Hospitality. Plus of
course, we had participation from the evergreen segments like BFSI, IT/ITES,
and manufacturing.
- Another thing we've done this time is that we've not combined brands
from the same company. For instance, Microsoft has different versions of
Windows and there are different vendors selling Linux. Since we're
tracking different brands in this survey, we've not combined them into one
'Windows' or 'Linux' brand umbrella. Each brand has its own value, and
that's what we're tracking.
- We've changed our criteria for determining winners of the Users'
Choice awards. This time the Users' Choice Awards have been given to the
brands with the highest likely future share. In each write-up, we've given
a Users' Choice Future Readiness Index, which tells you how many brands
have made it to the club. It shows the fastest moving brand and the speed
of other brands relative to it. The way to interpret is to imagine the top
brand as moving at a speed of 100, and the other brands are moving at
relatively lower speeds.
- The brand pull and persuasion graphs show a relative index, wherein
the brand with the highest score is 100, and the scores of others are
relative to it.
- We've also given a brand movement pattern graph in the individual
write-ups. This shows percent of current users who're likely to stay with
the brand in the future, those who're likely to switch to another brand,
and finally those who're not sure which brand to shift to.
- In both consumer and enterprise segments, we only considered brands
where at least 20 users already owned the brand.
- One thing we observed from the results this time was that brands with
a lower current user base typically have higher brand persuasion and pull,
as compared to brands that have a high current user base. This is only
logical because brands with higher mass are likely to loose some of it to
competing brands with lower mass.
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Each 'measure' in the model reflects a 'milestone' in the consumer's
interaction with the brand during the buying process – from recall to
consideration, to intention to buy, to usage. To measure how well a brand is
performing at each of these 3 critical 'transition points', the JuxtConsult
Brand MomentuxTM Model uses a set of simple but effective diagnostics:
- Brand Persuasion – how much is the consumer convinced about a brand
to not just consider it but also 'prefer' it over other brands in a particular
category (by intending to buy it). It reflects the 'persuasive' power of the
brand (of its positioning, proposition, benefits, image, value, etc).
- Brand Pull – how much is a brand able to attract and convince
consumers of competing brands or non-users of the category to prefer or
'switch over' to the brand. It reflects the 'consumer pull' power of the
brand.
- Brand Loyalty – how much is a brand able to convince its
existing consumers to 'continue' to prefer and buy the brand. It reflects the
retention or 'loyalty' power of the brand.
- Brand Momentum – It is measured as a combination of the
current 'mass' of consumers the brand has, together with the 'current speed'
at which it is (likely to) gain or lose consumers as a result of its current
marketing performance. Symbolically, the brand momentum indicates the future
'market share' potential of the brand.
The current 'mass' of the brand is measured as the 'cumulative' market (or
user) share the brand has accumulated in the market place. This is reflected by
its existing consumer base (including historical buyers who are still using the
brand).
To measure the 'speed' at which a brand is moving in the market place, the
model uses the three critical speed 'acceleration' factors from the brand's
current performance parameters. These are the brand's current 'persuasion'
power, 'consumer pull' power and 'loyalty' power.
In simple marketing terms, the model states that how many consumers a brand
is likely to gain in the future depends on how many consumers prefer the brand
today, how many are likely to switch-into the brand and how many are likely to
continue to stay with the brand. We've done this calculation for each brand and
mentioned it in the individual category pages. The write-up for each brand
carries a relative index for brand persuasion, brand pull, brand movement
pattern, and brand future readiness index.
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