Hardware, Software & Services: Typical Engagements
Market Penetration, Share, Satisfaction and Adoption: Server Software
A major server software developer wanted to track penetration, share and satisfaction with its current technology among all vendors, as well as to understand adoption rates of emerging technologies within the category. The goal was to establish baseline metrics and track changes over time.
To do this, ConStat has conducted detailed telephone surveys among knowledgeable IT professionals in organizations of all sizes and all industry categories on an annual basis. This representative sampling allows for the development of overall penetration and share figures for key metrics based on both completed interviews and termination data collected throughout the interviewing.
The results are used so that the client can understand its position within the marketplace relative to its competitors. The data also allows the client to identify emerging trends and to identify potential opportunities and threats in order to respond as quickly as possible in the ever-changing technical market.
International Product Satisfaction/Brand Equity: Design Software
A leading software maker selected ConStat to design and execute a brand equity study designed to include the ability to uncover the most compelling value propositions for a well known, but embattled, Web software product. The challenge faced by the product team was to determine if their existing brand name was strong enough to effectively compete against two other well-entrenched solutions, or if in spite of their recent product improvements, past functional weakness had so damaged the brand that a new name had to be considered.
ConStat’s team recommended a multicountry quantitative, online research program built to measure overall satisfaction against several competing brands, and which at the same time identified the most compelling features within each of them. Achieving this within the client’s tight timeline and budget required a thoughtful approach to the design. The entire project was successfully completed within six weeks, and the total cost was under the client’s expected budget.
Product Development/Feature Evaluation: Enterprise Configuration Management Software
ConStat’s team conducted a series of highly technical in-depth interviews with executive-level IT professionals who worked within a specified set of global corporations representing some of the client’s most important customers. The goal was to engage these high-level technical leaders in a discussion of the specific software configuration needs they manage and expect to confront in the near future, both by department and enterprisewide.
This international effort was conducted in person at participants’ business locations in the United States and via telephone for locations in Asia-Pacific and Europe. Each discussion ran approximately two hours in length, allowing the moderator, the participant and select client representatives to delve deeply into the technically complex group policy issues the executives faced.
Brand Evaluation, Usage and Customer Satisfaction: Business Process Integration Servers
A major server software developer wanted to track customer satisfaction and perceptual positioning of its brand of integration software relative to competitive brands as each company introduced new versions. ConStat conducted detailed online surveys with specific groups of IT professionals and decision makers who oversee selection, testing, deployment and production of business process integration servers. This category of business software is highly complex and competitive. It requires hard-to-find experts to give reliable answers to highly technical questions as well as general perceptual responses. ConStat located the appropriate professionals to complete the project.
The study helped track not only relative share of market but use of advanced features and user perceptions of performance on detailed product attributes. The goal was to determine relative strengths and weaknesses of each brand to help guide the feature development, positioning and messaging of the client’s brand.