Global sales and marketing expenses will to grow at 4.7% and 3.5% respectively in 2010, exceeding the forecast growth of IT global revenue of 3.2%. These expense gains will lead tech executives to accelerate their initiatives to improve the productivity and cost efficiency of sales and marketing. In addition, executives may continue to seek greater sales and marketing alignment through dramatic organization and reporting changes, as a way to solve the costly misalignments that have continually undermined sales and marketing integration and efficiency.

Over 20% of tech organizations with revenues of more than $1 billion have witnessed "significant" organization change during the past twelve months. A majority of senior tech sales and marketing executives expect this trend to continue throughout 2010. Sales operations must be considered a strategic driver of process improvements across the sales organization in addition to its more tactical support function. Key areas of focus include sales enablement, customer intelligence, account planning, and pipeline health.

"With sales costs increasing, the number of leads necessary to close a deal increasing, and the length of sales cycles increasing, sales organizations will have no choice but to ramp up their productivity to ensure survival in an highly competitive environment," said Michael Gerard, vice president, IDC's Sales Advisory Service.