Professional Services Providers That Communicate Their Extensive Industry Experience Command Premium Prices

Online, March 20, 2014 (Newswire.com) - LEXINGTON, Massachusetts March 20, 2014 New research from ITSMA's Professional Services and Solutions 2013 Brand Tracking Study shows that 81% of buyers that purchase consulting and technology professional services will pay a premium for companies that have extensive industry experience and industry-specific solutions. This finding was consistent across all industries included in the study and company sizes. From a country standpoint, even more buyers in Brazil would pay a price premium for industry experience and industry-specific solutions compared to those in the US, Europe or Australia.

ITSMA determines brand leadership by assigning each company a Brand Equity Index (BEI) score, which is calculated by weighting and summing individual firms' ratings for unaided awareness, aided awareness, first firm to call (or "top of mind"), familiarity, and favorability.

For the 13th year in a row, IBM leads the pack in total brand equity, but Accenture and HP are closing the gap. The next tier of BEI ranked companies includes Dell, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC and EY, with Capgemini close behind. Infosys, CSC, Cognizant, TCS, Wipro, HCL, iGATE, and Mindtree are building and defining their brands.
When asked about different categories of provider services, executives named IBM and HP as top players in security solutions and cloud. Capgemini, TCS, HCL and IBM lead for outsourcing service providers, while CSC, HP, and IBM rate as leaders in providing software and application services with Dell, Capgemini, Infosys, and TCS as contenders.

What is most important to buyers is that service providers understand their unique business needs and save them money while also adding value. When asked the question, buyers did not identify any companies as leaders in saving them money while adding value, but recognized both Accenture and KPMG as the companies that conveyed the best understanding of buyers' unique business needs.

METHODOLOGY
ITSMA interviewed 466 senior IT and business decision makers based in the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, and Brazil. Study respondents all held director, vice president, or C-level positions and represented organizations with revenue or operating budgets ranging from $100 million to over $20 billion. More than half of the respondents represent enterprises with $1 billion or greater in annual revenue, in eight major industries.

Respondents qualified for inclusion based on their involvement in purchasing IT professional services, defined as "technology and/or related business services (such as consulting, systems integration or implementation, or outsourcing) applied to address customer business objectives and valued at $100,000 or more."

The report examined 17 professional services and solutions firms, including Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, CSC, Dell, Deloitte, EY, HCL, Hewlett-Packard, IBM Global Services, iGATE, Infosys, KPMG, Mindtree, PwC, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro.

For more information on the study, contact Julie Schwartz at +1-781-862-8500, Ext. 112, or at jschwartz@itsma.com, or go to http://www.itsma.com/research/professional-services-and-solutions-2012-brand-tracking-study/.

ITSMA Contact:
Monica Pepicelli
Director of Marketing and Member Advocacy
Tel. +1-781-862-8500
Email: info@itsma.com

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