IDC Announces New Marketing Performance Matrix; Identifies Tech Marketing Leaders That Optimize Marketing Efficiency and Effectiveness
Friday, 17 February 2006
IDC's CMO Advisory Practice today announced its new Marketing Performance MatrixSM, which for the first time draws a direct correlation between a company's internal marketing operational efficiency and its effectiveness in marketplace execution.
The Matrix indicates the relative position of tech marketers along two dimensions: efficiency of internal operations, and effectiveness or proof of results. IDC identified several companies within the marketing leadership quadrant of the Marketing Performance Matrix, including Adobe, Cisco, EMC, Intel, Oracle, SAP and Symantec.
"The marketing function in tech is undergoing significant fundamental change. All tech marketers need to improve their effectiveness and IDC research demonstrates that a number of leaders are emerging," states Michael Gerard, research director for IDC's CMO Advisory Practice. "IDC will identify and then analyze the marketing management practices of these leaders, with the objective of sharing their techniques with others in the industry."
The IDC Marketing Performance Matrix quantitatively correlates internal marketing efficiency with effectiveness of execution in the marketplace. Four factors are used to measure efficiency: overall marketing investment, staff efficiency, global alignment, and marketing performance measurement. Marketing effectiveness is analyzed through three factors: market share, revenue growth, and earnings growth.
In addition to these quantitative factors, IDC analysis includes exploration of qualitative factors. IDC has identified three innovative leadership attributes that are imperative for the long-term success of a marketing organization:
Establish marketing as a centralized function without sacrificing the balance of local execution.
Optimize the alignment of marketing with other company functions, and with the market.
Establish the foundation and infrastructure to manage marketing more like a business, enabling data-driven decisions where possible.
"Cisco's strong focus on productivity for marketing operational excellence has been driven by continuous investment in people, processes, and systems," said Denise Peck, vice president of Marketing Operations at Cisco. "In particular, the company has invested in technology and systems to re-engineer and automate marketing processes, strengthened its professional development initiative, while maintaining its important focus on our customers and business results."
In the study, IDC's Marketing Performance Matrix, Identifying Innovation in Tech Marketing Leadership (IDC #34839), IDC analyzes areas of marketing organizational efficiency and introduces the Marketing Performance Matrix as an analytical framework to identify leadership strategies which drive the greatest financial return. The IDC Marketing Performance Matrix is the product of rigorous quantitative analysis of tech companies' proprietary marketing investment strategies coupled with their market performance. The study was conducted by IDC's CMO Advisory Practice.