CRN Channel Champs: Financial Factors

Channel Champions: How Do Your IT Vendors Support You Financially?

CRN Channel Champions are voted as top in their field by solution providers. When completing CRN's Channel Champion survey, VARs rate IT vendors on a number of criteria, including those comprising the Financial Factors subcategory: Competitive Pricing; Product Margins, SPIFs and Rebates; Dollars of Revenue for Services for Every Dollar Sell or Recommend; and, Business-Expected Sales.

The following 10 IT vendors do the best job supporting their solution providers in those areas, according to our respondents.

10. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Microsoft

Category: Video Conferencing
Financial Factors Rating: 76.1

Among the four criteria that comprise the financial factors subcategory, Microsoft's best score was in Competitive Pricing. Cisco, however, earned the top score in that criteria.

9. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Microsoft

Category: Systems and Network Management
Financial Factors Rating: 76.4

Microsoft's highest score in the Financial Factors subcategory was 79.9, in the Competitive Pricing criteria. Hewlett-Packard, however, earned the top score of 81.0 in the category.

8. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Hewlett Packard

Category: Workgroup Color Printers
Financial Factors Rating: 76.5

HP's highest score in Financial Factors was a 79.5 in Competitive Pricing, but Brother took the top score with an 80.7. Still, HP was able to beat the competition and be the overall subcategory winner, with a score two points higher than runner up Xerox.

7. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Seagate Technology

Category: SATA Hard Drives
Financial Factors Rating: 76.7

Seagate won the Financial Factors subcategory handily, with an overall score 3.5 points higher than second-place Hitachi GST. Last year, Seagate eeked out a first-place finish, narrowly taking the honors by a 0.1 margin from Western Digital. WD came in third this year, ahead of Toshiba. Seagate's biggest win in the subcategory was in the Competitive Pricing criteria.

6. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Hewlett Packard

Category: Systems & Network Management
Financial Factors Rating: 76.9

HP nudged out Microsoft for the win in Financial Factors. Although HP won the competitive pricing and services attached criteria, Microsoft took product margins and business expected sales. In the end, HP won the subcategory by half a point.

5. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Cisco

Category: Enterprise Networking Hardware
Financial Factors Rating: 77.3

Cisco beat second-place Juniper by slightly more than two points in Financial Factors. It beat the competition in three of the four subcategory criteria, losing Competitive Pricing to Juniper. Last year, Juniper beat Cisco by a hair in Financial, largely because of its stellar scores in competitive pricing.

4. Financial Factor Heavyweight: ViewSonic

Category: Flat Panel Displays
Financial Factors Rating: 78.4

ViewSonic's impressive overall score in this subcategory was not enough to beat the vendor that came in at #1. However, ViewSonic did come in on top in one of Financial Factor criterion: Product Margins. The vendor moved from third place last year in Financial Factors to second in 2011.

3. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Cisco

Category: Video Conferencing
Financial Factors Rating: 78.7

In this four-vendor field, Cisco emerged as the clear Financial Factor champ. It swept every criteria and beat second place challenger Microsoft by more than two and a half points. There was no Video Conferencing Category in CRN's Channel Champion survey in 2010.

2. Financial Factor Heavyweight: NetApp

Category: Enterprise Networking Storage
Financial Factors Rating: 78.9

NetApp moved from third place in 2010 to first place this year in the financial Factors subcategory. The vendor won every criteria in Financial Factors, with the exception of tying for first with EMC in the dollars attached criterion. NetApp's 78.9 was more than three points higher than EMC and Dell, which tied for second in Financial Factors.

1. Financial Factor Heavyweight: Samsung

Category: Flat Panel Displays
Financial Factors Rating: 80.0

Coming in with an 80 in Financial Factors, Samsung won three out of four criteria — losing Product Margins to ViewSonic. Samsung earned the top spot largely due to its performance in Business Expected Sales, where its score was almost eight points greater than last place LG Electronics. Last year, Samsung took second place in the subcategory, losing to HP, which was not included in this year's survey.