Computerland outranks other firms in mind share stakes

By RICHARD WOOD

Computerland has topped a "mind share" survey of IT firms in New Zealand but still ranks far behind in-house corporate IT departments.

The Solutions End-User survey by research firm IDC asked IT managers who the best-performing IT vendor or supplier was on a series of attributes including analysis, integration, training and management. The attributes were weighted and averaged to calculate the mind share figure.

Computerland scored 7.8 per cent. Other firms for whom figures were not disclosed, but were close, included IBM, Microsoft, Telecom, HP and Gen-i. The "don't know" category totalled 10.8 per cent.

However, heading the list were the in-house IT departments, which scored 18.2 per cent, down from 24.2 per cent last year, which IDC country manager Dinesh Kumar said confirmed the trend towards outsourcing IT.

Computerland CEO Chris Mackay said he expected a trend to outsourcing to continue although it was hard for firms that had built up in-house capability to turn around and outsource. It was a long-term sell for an IT supplier.

The CEO of Gen-i, Garth Biggs, was sceptical about a trend towards outsourcing. The world was divided into firms that did their own IT integration and those that wanted help. The biggest outsourcing deal this year simply combined two existing outsourcing agreements.

Biggs questioned the relevance of the profile of the group of companies surveyed by IDC. He said Gen-i did its own survey and didn't look at the "corner dairy".

"Our market is the top 200 organisations in New Zealand - large corporates and Government primarily."

The survey was of 205 IT executives from organisations of 50 to more than 1000 employees, in March and April 2003.

Kumar said the survey defined an IT solution as being worth more than $100,000 and said it had a "90 per cent confidence level" - within 5 per cent accuracy.

Computerland got a high mind share because it had a lot of outlets around the country. Mind share was not market share.

He said the spread of the results showed an opportunity "for some of these solutions companies to do some decent branding and case studies and demonstrate they are capable of delivering on these solutions".

Computerland is the trading name of Ceritas New Zealand, 80 per cent owned by Singapore Computer Services and 20 per cent by senior management.

Companies Office figures for Ceritas show a net operating revenue of $106 million for the year ending December 2002, up slightly on the previous year. The net deficit was $677,514.

CEO Chris Mackay said the results hid Computerland's performance because they included a negative result for software development division Ceritas Digital, which had since been disbanded and parts integrated back into the rest of the firm.

He said revenue grew 10 per cent for 2002 over 2001 and profit grew 30 per cent.