CMO Advisory Best Practices Series: Sales Enablement -- Marketing Content and Asset Management

This publication has been discontinued on September 9, 2011.

Introduction

Abstract

This IDC study assesses the current state of the people, process, and technology involved in sales enablement, with a focus on marketing content and asset management, including identifying best practice companies in these areas. This study provides a road map for marketing to improve sales enablement from a people, process, and technology perspective, including case studies from best practitioners. The results of this study are based on interviews with marketing and sales enablement professionals in major technology companies, including Avaya, CA, Hitachi, HP, Intel, Kodak, Quest Software, Siemens, Sun, Symantec, and VMware. Insights are also included from IDC' s recent Marketing Operations Leadership Board meeting and IDC' s annual Tech Marketing Benchmarks and Barometer Surveys.

"As marketers, we' ve invested too much of our resources that have not been leveraged by sales and our customers — over 40% of marketing assets are not in use today, due to either lack of relevancy, asset credibility, or an inability for users to find these assets," said Michael Gerard, VP research, IDC' s CMO Advisory Service. "Marketing and sales leaders will reverse this trend of wasted resources by assigning accountability for this and related processes; developing and executing more consistent processes for asset creation, deployment, and maintenance; and executing a more consolidated sales portal strategy that integrates with sales CRM applications and leverages new social media trends and technologies."

Table of Contents

• IDC Opinion
• In This Study
• Methodology
• Situation Overview
• What Is Sales Enablement?
• The Marketing Asset Life Cycle
• Definitions
• Who Is Accountable for the Marketing Asset Life Cycle?
• Key Processes for Content and Marketing Asset Management
• Current State of Marketing Assets in the Technology Industry
• What Processes Do You Have for Assuring Content and Marketing Asset Quality?
• Best Practice Case Study: Marketing Content Board (Avaya)
• Do You Understand Your Customers' Buying Process as Well as Their Content and Marketing Asset Needs?
• IDC Customer Experience Data and Its Relevance to Sales Enablement
• Sales Enablement Technology
• Best Practice Case Study: Leveraging Sales Enablement Technology (VMware)
• Technology — VMware' s Utilization of SAVO
• VM Vault
• The "Esch" File
• VM Radio
• VM Express
• Best Practice Case Study: Leveraging Web 2.0 for Sales Enablement (Sun)
• Future Outlook
• Essential Guidance
• Learn More
• Related Research
• Synopsis
• Table: Sales Representatives' Time Spent on Preparation Activities by Marketing Impact Level (Mean Hours Per Week)
• Table: Sales Information Distribution Method by Marketing Impact Level (Mean %)
• Figure: Marketing Organization Priorities, 2009
• Figure: Marketing' s Effectiveness at Optimizing Worldwide Sales from a Marketing and a Sales Perspective, 2007–2009
• Figure: IDC' s Sales Productivity Framework
• Figure: IDC' s Marketing Asset Life Cycle
• Figure: Involvement of Corporate Marketing, Business Units, and Regions Along the Marketing Asset Life Cycle
• Figure: Marketing Organization of the Future
• Figure: Sales Enablement Reporting Structure
• Figure: Existence of Sales Enablement by Company Revenue, 2009
• Figure: Marketing Asset Usage
• Figure: Reasons Why Marketing Assets Are Not in Use Today
• Figure: Percentage of Marketing Assets That Need to Be Updated or Retired
• Figure: Hours Spent Per Week Consuming Third-Party Information to Support Purchase Decisions
• Figure: Sales Representatives' Workday Tasks
• Figure: Sales Portal Capabilities
• Figure: VMware' s VM Vault
• Figure: VMware' s Esch File
• Figure: VMware' s VM Radio
• Figure: VMware' s VM Express
• Figure: Sun' s Sales Enablement: Catering to Busy Sales Reps
• Figure: Sun' s Sales Enablement: Peer-to-Peer Versus Formal Content Creation
• Figure: Sun' s Sales Enablement: Leveraging Key Social Networking Capabilities

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