Tech Marketing and Sales Expenses to Increase 8% and 9% Respectively

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. - In its forthcoming report on IT vendor Marketing and Sales expenses and key performance indicators, IDC’s Executive Advisory Group forecasts an 8% increase for the average marketing budget and a 9% increase for the average sales budget in 2007. These budget increases are the largest that IDC has forecast in the five years it has been tracking these trends and the latest forecast portends further pressure on the marketing and sales functions for cost control and productivity increases.

“Every dollar of revenue is getting more expensive for vendors to earn,“ said Rich Vancil, vice president of the Executive Advisory Group at IDC. “We are advising our clients to continue to scrutinize their costs, and to be more rigorous on which costs need to grow and which costs are candidates for reduction. Our analysis shows that many of the cost-reduction opportunities lie at the intersection of marketing and sales within large, global IT vendor organizations, where there are often redundant marketing processes and people across multiple product lines and regions.”

In the forthcoming report, IDC’s 2007 CMO Tech Marketing Barometer, IDC analyzes the level and direction of overall tech marketing spending to help guide IDC clients with their marketing investment and allocation decisions. This study includes information collected from surveys and interviews with senior marketing leadership at 60 hardware, software, and information technology services vendors, as well as telecommunications service providers. The forecast for Sales budgets will be further detailed in the forthcoming 2007 Tech Sales Barometer report, available in April 2007.