Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

My experience is in the semiconductor industry and our ratio of sales to marketing for direct sales is about 4:1. Add in manufacturer's reps and the effective ratio is about double, 8:1. As the Marketing Director, I found that it worked out that the level of activity required for a Product Marketing Manager dictated about 1 per $40M in business. This was not a hard and fast rule, just a guideline. Number of marketing people depended on which industry cycle (marketing guys are hit during downturns).

Wayde

hi Daniel

i would agree with experts that there is no "rule of thumb" ratio. it should depend on your business strategy and objective. and your ratio may be completely different from others within the same industry.

in Bangladesh, the telecom operators are mostly following the model Marcus has mentioned. the have a wide network of Distributors and Dealers who do the selling job. The Sales Departments look after the performance of the Distributors and Dealers, but that is limited to the retail sales. All the corporate and institutional sales are done by the operator company itself without bringing in Distributors/Dealers as special customized deals are made for every new Corporate/Institutional Client.

in the Marketing department, the creative work as well as final work of placing A&P is done thru 3rd party Advertising Agency. the Product Development, Brand Management, Communication, Research are all done within the company. so for these they have a sizeable team.

here, the largest telecom operator, GrameenPhone (a subsidiary of TeleNor of Norway) has a Sales team and Marketing Ratio of 4:1 since this is a fast growing market and company.

then again other operators have different ratios as they have different strategies and viewpoint in this regard.

hope that helps.

cheers!!