Tech Marketing Budgets Projected to Increase by 7.5% in 2006 - IDC Report
IT
vendor marketing budgets will increase by 7.5% for the full year 2006, the
fastest rate of increase over the past five years,
according to IDC
CMO Advisory Service projections. IDC's Marketing Staff Throughput
Index measures program execution per marketing employee and has increased
by about 10% over the past year to $301,400. The average tech
vendor is also getting more leverage from its marketing staff as indicated
by the IDC Program-to-People Ratio, which has expanded to 65:35 for 2006.
IDC sees improvement in marketing’s
contribution to the strategic planning processes, and in marketing’s
ability to measure performance. However, there are still many challenge
areas for the senior marketing team. This includes the need to improve
alignment between corporate marketing and the product and field marketing
disciplines. Also, our essential guidance to clients includes
establishment of an overall marketing skill set inventory and improvement
program; and an increased investment– up to 5% of marketing budget –
that should be earmarked for IT and infrastructure for the marketing
function.
In the study, Marketing Investment Planner 2007: Benchmarks and Key Performance Indicators (IDC #203212), IDC provides a comprehensive analysis of qualitative and quantitative marketing investment priorities, marketing-mix decisions, and operational and organization information for many of the world's leading and most influential technology vendors. This study is based on 95 interviews conducted with senior marketing executives of the leading IT hardware, software, and services vendors, including Adobe, Cisco, HP, Intel, SAP, and Symantec, representing over $360 billion in IT revenues and over $12 billion in marketing spending.
