Businesses Must Seek Value From Struggling Suppliers

摘要

Technology suppliers are cutting thousand of jobs around the globe as they go into survival mode. Lenovo started 2009 by announcing plans to cut 2,500 jobs, or 11% of its workforce, to help it through the downturn, following similar moves by Yahoo and Dell. Even IBM and Microsoft are rumoured to be considering thousands of job cuts in the near future. Although hit by the credit crunch, users are likely to benefit from increased economic pressure on suppliers. "In this tough market, any supplier worth its salt will be focused on delivering increased value to customers," says David Roberts, chief executive of The Corporate IT Forum. But Roberts does not expect job cuts to lead to any significant reduction in the range of IT suppliers' services. IT industry analyst Richard Hol-way says service is a key differentiator in bad times and is unlikely to be affected by job cuts.