Vendor consolidation in the broadcast technology market is on the rise. The reasons often quoted for these deals include increased scale, greater operational efficiencies, broader market reach, better use of existing sales infrastructure, and of course the opportunity to sell integrated solutions.
This all makes sound business sense, particularly the ability to sell complete solutions — after all if a vendor can reach “critical mass” it may be able to capture more, or even all, of large contracts.
Buying from a “one-stop-shop” makes sense for the customer too. It’s easier to deal with a single vendor; and if there’s a problem with a system the customer has one number to call and has better assurance that there will be no finger pointing between multiple vendors.
In the interest of finding out whether this seemingly sensible proposition is widely accepted by technology buyers, I asked almost 4,000 people who participated in the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey the following question:
When purchasing broadcast technology products, do you prefer to buy from a single “one-stop-shop” or select “best-of-breed” solutions from multiple vendors?
- Where possible from a single supplier
- Evaluate individual suppliers and select best of breed
- Don’t know
The responses to this question are summarized in the chart below. It appears that despite the clear benefits of buying from a single vendor, the majority of broadcast technology buyers prefer to evaluate and purchase “best-of-breed” solutions from multiple vendors.
The responses to this question were consistent across geographies, with the responses from all regions more or less mirroring the global response show in the chart above.
Interestingly, government and educational buyers exhibited the strongest preference to purchase from a single supplier. This appears to conflict with the answer these same buyers gave to a different question that I wrote about in a previous post, when they said they prefer to buy from dealers. However, it’s likely that these buyers consider dealers and systems integrators to be single suppliers. If this is the case, it highlight the importance to vendors of developing and maintaining strong relationships with third-party players in the distribution channel.