IT sales, marketing expenses to grow faster than revenue
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 06 April 2010, 22:41 IST   |    1 Comments
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IT sales, marketing expenses to grow faster than revenue
Framingham: The International Data Corporation (IDC) Executive Advisory Group forecasts that global sales and marketing expenses will to grow at 4.7 percent and 3.5 percent respectively in 2010, exceeding the forecast growth of IT global revenue of 3.2percent. These expense gains will lead tech executives to accelerate their initiatives to improve the productivity and cost efficiency of sales and marketing. In addition, executives may continue to seek greater sales and marketing alignment through dramatic organization and reporting changes, as a way to solve the costly misalignments that have continually undermined sales and marketing integration and efficiency. Recent research from IDC indicates that over 20 percent of tech organizations with revenues of more than $1 billion have witnessed "significant" organization change during the past twelve months. A majority of senior tech sales and marketing executives expect this trend to continue throughout 2010. "With sales costs increasing, the number of leads necessary to close a deal increasing, and the length of sales cycles increasing, sales organizations will have no choice but to ramp up their productivity to ensure survival in a highly competitive environment. Sales operations must be considered a strategic driver of process improvements across the sales organization in addition to its more tactical support function. Key areas of focus include sales enablement, customer intelligence, account planning, and pipeline health," said Michael Gerard, Vice President, IDC's Sales Advisory Service. Within the typical tech marketing organization, IDC sees that executives have numerous opportunities for savings and efficiency. "Sales enablement, content audits, and campaign vs. product go-to-market programs are all great ways to save money, and to make customers happier at the same time," said Rich Vancil, Vice President of IDC's Executive Advisory Group. IDC's 2010 Sales and Marketing Barometer Surveys were recently completed by the CMO Advisory Service and the Sales Advisory Service. These surveys are intended to take the pulse of marketing and sales executives in the information technology sector and to analyze the direction of marketing and sales resource expenditures and priorities during the next 12 months.

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