At TEKsystems, It Matters to Know What Matters to IT Service Buyers
Sep 16, 2010 | HANOVER, MD | For media inquiries, please contact us at media@TEKsystems.com.
HANOVER, MD – September 16, 2010 – The technical expertise of consultants is the most important factor when clients are asked why they select an IT services vendor. When offered 100 points to allocate toward the importance of different selection criteria, IT services buyers assign 34 points, the highest amount, to technical expertise, 24 to the price-to-value ratio, 13 to the quality of project personnel and nine to past performance / references.
TEKsystems, the nation’s leading technology staffing and services company, conducts an in-depth survey of its client base annually. This year, TEKsystems Global Services partnered with Loyalty Research Center (LRC) to gain the client insight and feedback required to continually improve its managed, project-based and outsourced capabilities. Approximately 100 clients provided feedback to this year’s survey.
According to the survey’s findings, a large amount of consistency exists across different stakeholders and across different service categories. IT executives, IT leaders, IT managers, Purchasing / Procurement professionals and HR all view technical expertise as the most critical factor when evaluating an IT services provider, and ordered the selection criteria similarly. By the same token, the defined importance of each criterion remains intact regardless of which TEKsystems Global Services offering the clients evaluated: Applications Services, Infrastructure Services or Education Services.
Interestingly, however, business leaders do differ from the other stakeholder groups. These respondents identify the price-to-value ratio as the most important criterion, weighing it with 40 points. Technical expertise is awarded 19 points, range of services 18 points and flexible delivery models 10 points. “This discrepancy reinforces that we need to continue to focus on all of our client stakeholders,” says TEKsystems VP of Global Services Operations, Randy Verdino. “Every stakeholder’s perspective is important and the business is looking at us through a different lens. Ultimately, it’s up to us to ensure we satisfy all parties to deliver the IT and business outcomes our clients seek.”
Clients value TEKsystems’ dedication to meeting their IT services needs. Overall, TEKsystems Global Services received a customer satisfaction rating of 85%, four percent higher than the competition. Additionally, an unprecedented 100% of surveyed clients indicate that they’d do business with TEKsystems Global Services in the future, and 91% say that they’d recommend TEKsystems Global Services to others.
When asked to identify the strongest performance areas, clients rated the quality of TEKsystems’ project personnel 19% higher than the competition. “This is the one finding that I’m most proud of,” says Verdino. “It is the people on an IT engagement who make or break it. Our ability to provide experts with the right technical skills to get the job done, and the necessary soft skills to fit in with client teams, allows us to be productive quickly and deliver expected results.”
Client respondents also rate TEKsystems’ ability to provide quality work and expected outcomes for each project as superior to the competition, allocating a score of 82% favorable to TEKsystems Global Services, compared to only 63% favorable to the competition. “A deeper dive into the secondary satisfaction drivers reveals that clients really value our ability to understand their needs, set clear expectations, consistently communicate, be flexible and offer a personal commitment to deliver results,” says TEKsystems Market Research Manager, Tania Lavin.
TEKsystems’ ability to provide the right people, great service and quality outcomes is consistent across its on-shore, near-shore and off-shore delivery models. The survey reveals that clients rate TEKsystems 12% higher than the competition in its ability to provide a scalable solution and 20% higher in its ability to provide consistent service delivery regardless of location. “This is especially meaningful given our significant investments in near- and off-shore delivery centers,” says TEKsystems Executive Director of Applications, Roger Dicke. “We want our clients to rest assured that they will receive best-of-breed capabilities and commitment to success no matter where the service is delivered.”
As with the surveys it conducted in years past, TEKsystems will continue to leverage client feedback to fuel ongoing enhancements and improvements to its business. According to TEKsystems Executive Director of Global Services, Eric Staebell, “One of our biggest strengths is our attention to the clients we serve and our dedication to adapting so we can help them meet their ever-evolving ambitions. We will continue to prioritize the voices of our customers, building upon our service portfolio and international footprint, so we can continue to deliver outstanding results.”
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About TEKsystems
People are at the heart of every successful business initiative. At TEKsystems, an Allegis Group company, we understand people. Every year we deploy more than 80,000 IT professionals at 6,000 client sites across North America, Europe and Asia. Our deep insights into IT human capital management enable us to help our clients achieve their business goals–while optimizing their IT workforce strategies. We provide IT staffing solutions and IT services to help our clients plan, build and run their critical business initiatives. Through our range of quality-focused delivery models, we meet our clients where they are, and take them where they want to go, the way they want to get there.