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Year 2008-09 has been vital for IT channels in more ways than one.
While the first half of the fiscal was in line with expectations, the second half turned out to be the most challenging. With the global economy on a downward spiral, the IT channel witnessed a phase of de-growth or marginal growth for the first time in five years.
While the IT channel did well to withstand the global recession, their outlook toward business has changed significantly. From strategies to achieve and manage high growth, the IT channel’s focus has now turned to improving the bottomline, enhancing productivity, providing services and aligning closely with existing customers rather than looking for new ones.
The changing strategic focus is well reflected among the winners of the CRN Xcellence Awards 2009. As compared to an average of 35 percent turnover growth recorded by the top three finalists last year, this year’s finalists have recorded an average topline growth of only 11 percent.
It is but natural then that in FY 2008-09, unlike in the last few years, winners have been judged primarily on their ability to withstand external market shocks. In essence, the CRN Xcellence Awards 2009 are a reflection of the robustness and resilience of the IT channel. As a wise man has said, the true test of character is in times of adversity.
Awards nomination process
Despite a tough year, we received more nominations than ever before. We received 280 valid nominations from across 45 cities as compared to 185 forms received in the previous year. Nominations were invited using a combination of tools. We sent electronic direct mailers to channels in our database inviting them to fill the nomination form online. We asked several channel associations to encourage their members to participate by filling up the awards nomination form. We wrote to vendors to request their leading partners to send their nominations.
Awards Categories
Another unique aspect of the CRN Xcellence Awards is the categorization of various awards. To provide a level-playing field to channel companies from smaller cities, we divided the awards into two main sub-categories, ‘Advanced’ (Metro & Class-A cities) and ‘Emerging’ (for smaller cities). Again, we decided to give each of the Advanced and Emerging category awards regionally, thus giving due weightage to the regional dynamics of the IT channel industry.
- Systems Integrator
- Managed Services Provider
- Solutions Provider - Security
- Solutions Provider - Software
- Solutions Provider - Networking
- Solutions Provider - Server & Storage
- Corporate Reseller
- Systems Builder
- Sub-distributor
- Retailer
- Company of the Year
- Outstanding Channel Contribution
Awards parameters
What sets the CRN Channel Xcellence Awards apart from the several other channel awards is the fact that they lay emphasis not just on the size of the company but also on certain aspects that are integral to making a company a true leader.
- Quality of turnover growth and profitability
- Product and solutions mix
- Quality of HR
- Business systems
- Marketing & sales innovations
- Customer responsiveness
- Future growth strategies
Choosing the finalist
Of the nominations received in each award category, the final five were selected by the CRN editorial team. The team scanned through each form to verify the information provided by the awards applications. Wherever required, we called up applicants to get more details about certain aspects of their business.
The final five were selected primarily on the basis of the quality of information provided in the nomination form. Once shortlisted, all finalists were sent an e-mail requesting them to send any bit of information about their achievements and performance that would boost their chances of winning the award.
Jury process
After almost two months of work, we invited a jury panel consisting of eminent people with diverse experience in IT channels. This year, for the first time, CRN decided to have two jury boards—one to judge enterprise VAR categories, the other to judge the sub-distributor and retail categories. While for the retail and sub-distributor categories we chose channel heads of vendors and distributors having a strong consumer IT focus, for the enterprise VAR category we got chiefs of enterprise vendors and value-added distributors.
Also this year, to provide jury members with enough time to score the nominations, the entire jury process was held online whereby each jury member was provided online access of the nomination forms of finalists for the categories they were scoring. Each member had to fill up scores for each award criterion on a scale of one to 10.
The jury was also asked to assign weights to the awards criteria for different categories. For instance, in the case of solutions providers, the jury gave maximum weight to the solutions mix, business processes and systems, and skill-sets, whereas for sub-distributors the highest weight was given to branch coverage, the products mix, and systems and processes. Similarly, for retailers, the jury felt that marketing innovation and the products mix were important criteria.
For each award category, the weighted scores provided by each jury member were added up to arrive at the final score.
In this manner we identified India’s best channel companies.
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