IDC's CMO Advisory Service provides marketing executives and their operations counterparts with deep research and industrywide best practices to plan investments, prepare marketing operations, mobilize resources, and measure results. IDC has unique access to IT vendors and routinely surveys these companies on detailed marketing investments for all major marketing spending areas and organizational structures. In addition, IDC collaborates with leading marketing organizations to identify best practices and develop case studies to enhance marketing execution, operations, and performance.

As the IT industry matures, shifting from a demand response to a demand creation environment, marketing executives face a difficult set of complex business and management issues. Improving marketing effectiveness is one of the top priorities for IT marketing executives.

• How does my company compare with the IT industry in terms of marketing expense and marketing performance metrics?
• How can I improve the skill sets of my marketing organization?
• What is the optimal size and structure for my marketing organization?
• How do I bring the voice of the customer into my company's go-to-market execution?

A series of analytical studies provides key insights for planning activities and includes the following:

• The Marketing Investment Planner: Benchmarks and Key Performance Indicators provides investments, operations, and performance-related benchmarks and metrics to support organizational budgeting, execution, and measurement.
• The IDC Performance MatrixSM draws a correlation between marketing investments and performance to identify best-in-class companies.
• The Marketing Barometer assesses investment levels and issues topping executive agendas across the tech industry.
• The Custom Benchmark Analysis compares organizations against a select target group from the IDC Executive Benchmarking Database and provides a comprehensive gap analysis with actionable recommendations.

• This executive Board meets three times per year. Client members assemble to learn and share with the industry's best practitioners.
• Marketing management issues that arise across the industry are addressed.
• Peer-to-peer networking adds to the learning mix.
• Best practices topics include performance measurement, leads management, sales and marketing alignment, interactive marketing, and others.

• Unlimited inquiry access to practice analysts, including facilitated member-to-member discussions on request.

This unique database of investment and performance benchmarks was developed by IDC's Executive Advisory Group to help executives develop competitive budgets, transform organizations, and measure results. The database represents 100+ of the IT industry's largest and most influential vendors accounting for over $400 billion in revenue. IDC applies a proprietary methodology to normalize data and provide accurate comparative benchmarks.

Each year IDC's Executive Advisory Group surveys and interviews nearly 200 tech industry business executives on investment and business imperatives for the coming year. Relevant results are published into IDC's Global Leadership Boards but also serve as a valuable tool for custom requests, particularly those related to internal misalignment considerations.

IDC provides marketing-specific consulting capabilities to complement the CMO Advisory Service benefits. Sample engagements include:

IDC can assess several areas of a client's marketing processes versus those of industry best practitioners' and provide a road map for process improvement.

IDC can provide a top-to-bottom assessment of a client's marketing organization to determine optimal marketing staffing levels and head count mix to support both local and global marketing strategies.

IDC works with clients to design and implement marketing performance measurement processes to increase understanding of program effectiveness and drive return on investment.

The IDC Brand Equity Index and Investment Analysis provides a road map for brand investment that combines the factors of current brand investment, customer awareness and preference, marketplace position, and available market opportunity.

The IDC Executive Advisory Group provides IT industry executives with research-based guidance and peer forums to support planning, budgeting, operational, and market execution decisions. Led by senior industry practitioners who have directly experienced client and member challenges, the IDC Executive Advisory Group is uniquely positioned to help IT vendor executives with their most pressing business issues and informational needs.