Description:

In a tough economy, companies do more than make cuts; they make choices. A down economy affords the opportunity to fine tune marketing initiatives by reallocating the budget to invest in high potential programs and eliminate those that deliver sub-par results. It is all about making trade-offs. Marketers, faced with moderate to severe budget constraints, need to examine if they are spending their limited dollars in the right places and on the right things.

Services Marketing Budgets and Benchmarks: 2009 Budget Allocations and Trends delivers a detailed look at the state of the services marketing profession as it exists in early 2009. It provides data on services marketing budgets, budget allocations, and marketing priorities from a range of companies across the technology and consulting industries.

Key trends highlighted in the report include:

• Given the economic climate, revenue growth forecasts are declining
• Some geographies and vertical markets are doing better than others
• Most marketers are operating under moderate, not severe, budgetary constraints
• Heading into 2009, marketers are predicting both budget and staff decreases
• The magnitude of the budget decreases will require some difficult choices; marketers are shifting, refocusing, and prioritizing activities
• Marketers are shifting their budgets from marcom to sales enablement
• Marketers are opting for programs that drive demand generation over brand awareness
• The marcom emphasis is on highly targeted campaigns using digital media and thought leadership; events are taking a hit
• Marketers continue to shift more of the marcom budget online; 2009 will see new investment in the corporate Website as well as continued experimentation with and use of social media
• Account-Based Marketing continues to gain momentum

Topics covered in the report include:

• Services marketing budget size and growth rates
• Services marketing budget allocations
• Corporate vs. field marketing
• Staff vs. nonstaff
• Demand generation vs. awareness marketing
• Investment by major budget categories
• Marcom budget allocation
• Services growth rates
• Marketing staffing and operations
• Gross margin trends
• Marketing priorities

Companies included in the study:

ACS, Inc., Alcatel-Lucent, Atos Origin, Avanade, Inc., BearingPoint, BT Global Services, CGI, Cisco, CompuCom, EDS, an HP Company, EMC, Freeborders, Fujitsu Services, General Dynamics, Hitachi Consulting, Hitachi Data Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Hexaware, IBM, Infosys Technologies, Iron Mountain, Juniper Networks, Inc., Lenovo, Logica UK, Microsoft, NCR, NetApp, Oracle, Orange Business Services, Patni Computer Systems, Ltd., Pitney Bowes, Polycom, Raya Holding, Rockwell Automation, SAP, Satyam, SBS Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Symantec, Tata Consultancy Services, The TriZetto Group, UTStarcom, VeriSign, Vertex, Inc., Wipro Technologies, and Xerox Corporation.

Study Methodology

In December 2008 and January 2009, ITSMA used a Web-based survey to gather data from its members about services marketing budgets, services growth and margins, and top marketing priorities. ITSMA received 51 responses from 46 unique companies and analyzed the collected data in three ways:

• The data set as a whole
• Company type—primarily services or product and services
• Company size—less than $500 million or more than $500 million in annual services revenue

Respondent Demographics

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