Indian IT firms are now making their mark as Superbrands. Of the 74 Indian Business Superbrands selected by Superbrands - an independent arbiter on brand management - seven are IT companies. Among a total of 980 brands invited to be judged and listed in Business Superbrands, around 12 technology companies had participated.

Business Superbrands are those which deal with businesses such as infrastructure and engineering companies. Internationally known as the 'Oscars in the world of branding', the superbrand status is accorded to brands that offer consumers significant emotional and physical advantages over competitors by offering brand development and brand management practices.

NIIT [Get Quote], NIIT Technologies, Infosys [Get Quote], Moser Baer [Get Quote], Microsoft, Symantec and Sun Microsystems were judged by marketing professionals and business readers as their preferred Superbrands and the scores were added to the Council's score that marked them on the basis of brand resilience, reliability and trust. P Rajendran, COO of NIIT, which was accorded this status in 2005, says: "Customer feedback is a very important criterion for a company to be listed in the Superbrands."

Anmol Dar, managing director, Superbrands India, said, "Superbrands has helped companies and brands create a marketable differentiator. Indeed, across eight countries, where research was conducted, it was conclusively shown that 71 per cent of all respondents were more likely to buy a product that carried the Superbrands logo."

Superbrands gives 9.09 per cent weightage to consumer response and this aspect has only been introduced in India. The arbiter does not focus on numbers but ranks companies on a scale of ten on brand reliability, recall value among others and those getting 6.6 or above, get qualifies for becoming Superbrands.

Arvind Thakur, CEO, NIIT Technologies is of the opinion that perceptions are as important as real facts and that such acknowledgements enhance the ability to acquire new businesses. "Good connect with the corporate customers is another factor that determines the brand's recall value. We have gone out of our core space of IT training and redefined the global talent development", opines Rajendran.

Dar says that in 2010, more catagories will be added to categorise the IT companies apart from the existing ones of peripherals, operating sysytems, computer education among others.

Analysts say that the IT industry is competing against other industries to maintain its status of driver of the economy and compared to the last time, IT firms are flattening.

Companies also believe they need to work on certain dimensions to improve the quality of their work.