According to SD USERS’
SATISFACTION SURVEY 2006, findings : today customer is not just price
conscious, he is actually price sensitive. He wants good value for money
and thinks UPS to be an integral part of the computing system. The survey
shows that power protection equipment customers in India primarily
evaluate product reliability, maintenance and service capabilities while
selecting power protection equipment.
In the enterprise
segment, they expect suppliers to actively anticipate their needs and
offer pioneering solutions and new services. Manufacturers that leverage
this opportunity to distinguish themselves from other participants are
likely to gain a strong competitive advantage. Today most corporate are
willing to pay a premium for a truly reliable product rather than take the
risk of suffering outrages by compromising on quality. It is pretty much
like paying somewhat more for an insurance policy where you are sure that
you are truly covered in the event of a mishap.
Softdisk believes,
Innovation is the new mantra. "Manufacturers will need to be more
creative and proactive in identifying and grasping presently unexploited
opportunities. With all suppliers already providing high value to their
clients and competition being intense, differentiation - although
difficult to achieve - will be key to accessing new market
potential."
With increasing value of
space, there is an increased focus amongst the new age customers to
incorporate higher wattage per cubic inch and demand high power factor for
higher efficiency. This is where the Indian manufacturers have lost the
plot to the Chinese & Taiwanese companies. Thus even the high end UPSs
are coming with small foot print.
Manufacturers possessing
high brand awareness and recognition are likely to be favored by
end-users. And it is here that the biggies get bigger while smallies
(smaller companies) perish.
"New vendors who
want to position themselves in the Indian Power Conditioners and transient
voltage surge suppressors markets need to deploy considerable resources to
make their names known to users." and even the established once need
to enhance their capabilities by way of R&D, technical collaborations
especially in enterprise class segment. In fact, reputation and previous
experience strongly influence customers' equipment purchasing decisions.
Today’s manufacturer
are no more vendors, they are seen as consultants to design and fulfill
the need of an enterprise’s power requirements. The client want
manufacturers to initially help them identify what power quality
disturbances affect their sites, as the study reveals that although Power
Protection is extremely important to most users, they do not generally
monitor Power Quality on-site. Softdisk has been working overtime to
educate the customers to go for power quality & power continuity both.
No wonders, it not we,
but our readers (the end-users) have positioned us as Power Quality
Consultants. Our mission is to forge partnerships between Power Protection
Equipment manufacturers and end users.
A chart depicting
the SD Rating
vis-à-vis
percentage of satisfaction is given below :
|
Rating |
% of User
Satisfaction |
A+++ |
95% & Above. |
A++ |
90% to 94.99% |
A+ |
85% to 89.99% |
A |
80% to 84.99% |
B+++ |
75% to 79.99% |
B++ |
70% to 74.99% |
B+ |
65% to 69.99% |
B |
60% to 64.99% |
C+++ |
55% to 59.99% |
C++ |
50% to 54.99% |
C+ |
45% to 49.99% |
C |
40% to 44.99% |
Not
Rated |
Below 40%. |
Softdisk sent over
12000 direct mailers. The result of the survey are based on 5410 responses
received to our elaborate questionnaire. The questionnaire was made
available online at www.softdiskindia.com.
This effort of ours has taken over four long months (July’06 thru Oct’06).
Our executives visited over 250 installations across various locations
through out India, and also over 370 clients were touched thru tele-calling.
Read on to know how
various companies fared in the SD’s USERS’ SATISFACTION SURVEY, 2006.
This year the survey
findings were analyzed more analytically by firstly bifurcating Online
& Offline/Inline UPS manufacturers separately. Online UPS manufacturer
were further measured separately on Quality, After Sales Service, Pre
Sales Education which Softdisk considers a must. The manufacturer must be
able to identify the need of the end user and feed them with requisite
information that will enable them to decide from the plethora of products
available in the market, to actually have a quality product at a good
enough price. The Survey findings indicate that Indian consumer is not
necessarily price conscious when it comes to selecting the high end UPS
systems.
The Offline/Inline UPS
systems were not categorized at this level. This limits by not allowing us
to compare APC & DELTA with say Numeric, Emerson or DB. As APC &
DELTA vigorously promotes line interactive technology even to the
enterprise segment. However it is still the online parallel redundant dual
conversion technology which rules the roost when it comes to high end
mission critical applications. The highlight of this years survey was the
updation of SD Ratings which serves as a benchmark for quality and
price-worthiness. This Softdisk believes, will educate the customer who
in-turn will put in more queries to the manufacturer, there by educating
themselves.
|