IDC forecasts a 4 percent increase for the average tech vendor marketing budget in 2008, and a 7.9 percent increase for the average tech vendor sales budget in 2008. These budget increases are the lowest that IDC has forecast in the past four years. IDC expects further pressure on IT vendor marketing and sales functions for cost control and productivity increases.

"Marketers should be prepared to withstand a budget reduction while still being able to keep the core elements of the marketing business model in place and productive," said Michael Gerard, vice president of research for the CMO Advisory Practice and Executive Advisory Group at IDC. "Those technology marketers that continue improving their operations excellence coupled with efficiency of execution will be in a good position to weather this storm."

"We are advising our clients to continue improving alignment between marketing and sales, in particular focusing everyone's efforts back to the customer," said Lee Levitt, program director for the Sales Advisory Practice of IDC. "Most marketing and sales teams' assets and processes are out of sync with the needs of their buyers' requirements; and those companies that succeed at changing this trend will capture share in this challenging market. We have found increased dissatisfaction regarding the relationship between marketing and sales, and have specific recommendations to both turn that trend around and, specifically, to improve marketing and sales productivity."

About these studies

The forthcoming report, IDC's 2008 CMO Tech Marketing Barometer (Doc #211702), 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 41 hardware, software, and information technology services vendors, as well as telecommunications service providers.

Sales budget investments and strategic initiatives to reach growing revenue targets will be further detailed in the forthcoming 2007 Tech Sales Barometer report. Presentations of the recent marketing and sales barometer webcasts are currently available, with published reports of both studies scheduled to be available in the coming weeks.

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