Hard to hold value in tech sector

You might’ve come across this year’s annual roundup of the world’s 100 most valuable brands. It’s little surprise who was on top of the BrandZ list (Apple knocked Google off its perch). You won’t be shocked to learn that almost a quarter of the companies were categorised as ‘technology’. I’m surprised it wasn’t higher. 

In fact, if you dig deeper, it’s clear that many of the companies not strictly classified as ‘technology’ are, in fact, tech companies. It’d be crazy not to consider the likes of Amazon or Alibaba as tech outfits, even though retail is their primary business. 

The same goes for telcos: AT&T, Verizon and our own Telstra made the list, which is compiled by Millward Brown on behalf of WPP. They may have been labelled as ‘telecoms’ on the BrandZ table, but carriers increasingly look like the IT channel of the future.

Take, for example, Telstra and Optus: both are rolling up partnerships with IaaS providers. Telstra is fleshing out a two-tier channel to sell its cloud platforms, and I doubt Optus will be very far behind. Who can blame telcos for wanting to ensure cloud delivery replaces on-site hardware? They own the pipes that deliver everything-as-a-service.

Whereas in 2006, only one tech company made the top five most valuable brands (Microsoft), this year four out of the top five were in ICT. Tech firms are riding high because technology is embedded within the heart of every business. It’s hard to see how the IT industry could be anything but overwhelmingly buoyant.

But success in tech is easy come, easy go. While perennially high-value brands like Coke and McDonald’s have maintained starring roles on the BrandZ league table over the course of a decade, hot startups like Facebook and Alibaba have come out of nowhere while once mighty tech players have faded; over the past decade, HP fell from 21st to 39th and Cisco dropped from 20th to 67th.

There’s clearly a tale of two channels. The most successful companies I speak to are often embracing trends such as cloud, mobile, social and security, while still leveraging their historic strengths. There’s a happy medium somewhere between moving with the times while also ‘sticking to your knitting’.

Speaking of winners, it would be remiss of me not to mention CRN’s big win last month. We were named ‘Magazine of the Year’ at the prestigious IT Journalism Awards. It was incredibly gratifying given the hard work we put into the magazine you hold in your hands.