In today’s challenging times, IT companies are struggling with customer acquisition and not so much with retention. One of the key reasons for this is that buyers are wary of changes and prefer to tread the familiar path for the foreseeable future. No big decisions are being made and they would rather work with tested service providers. If you notice, very few buyers switched from Satyam to other vendors after the scandal broke out. If something of that enormity failed to motivate a switch to other players, then what will? Unless there is a horribly botched up delivery with repeated transgressions, it is unlikely to happen especially in today’s times.

So, IT players have to be carefully evaluate their options and segment their prospects smartly.  For example, the mid-market is fairly unexplored and presents good opportunities – efforts invested in winning clients in this segment may be more worthwhile than running after F 500 companies where many players including Indian service providers are quite well entrenched. Similarly, there are other such opportunities and companies will do well to hit the pause button and examine their strategy closely. Else, it will become the case of chasing the proverbial pot of gold.

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