Abstract
This IDC study provides insight to vendor marketers for better aligning their marketing
investments to build effective brand awareness and influence. The growing mandate for solutions
selling now requires that vendor marketers become better able to influence the senior managers that
seek to address business issues, in addition to maintaining a proficiency in addressing technical
issues and requirements. IDC finds that:
- Buyers perceive that the overall capability for IT vendors to solutions sell (i.e., to
understand the business problems for a company of their size and industry sector) is only adequate
and needs to be improved.
- Overall, buyers perceive that the influence of professional organizations, peer referrals, and
independently authored white papers are all more important than the influence of direct
communications with the vendor sales representative.
According to Richard Vancil, vice president of IDCs CMO Advisory Research program, "As IT
buyers grow more sophisticated, tech marketers may face a growing ineffectiveness. The marketing
efforts of tomorrow will need to be highly tailored for audience and be able to be monitored and
recalibrated quickly. However, the marketing resource management practices of today - the budgeting
processes and organizational structures, which are largely functional versus market-facing in
orientation - may not facilitate this capability." | 
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