This IDC study is a reference guide for budget management and cost control. It can serve as the foundation for sales, marketing, and finance executives to better demonstrate fiscal management capabilities to C-level executives and to improve decision-making processes based on standardized resource allocations. The slowing economy will continue to place more pressure on marketing and sales executives to control costs. In IDC's experience with hundreds of management teams, the best approach is for these executives to actively and continuously identify areas for better budget management — and do this before it is done for them by the CFO or COO. This 2008 version of the taxonomy is revised and expanded. It contains new definitions and cost categorizations for market intelligence, digital marketing, product marketing, and several other areas. These definitions and the benchmark guidelines that are paired with them have been developed over the past six years in collaboration with industry leaders. At many IT vendor companies, this taxonomy is the de facto framework for the annual budgeting process.

"Using the IDC sales and marketing taxonomy, coupled with benchmarking against IDC's industry-leading Sales and Marketing Technology Benchmarks database, will enable executives to advance their investment management capabilities," said Rich Vancil, vice president of IDC's Executive Advisory Group. "Executives should use this taxonomy guide as a tool to optimize return on their activities and expenses across the sales and marketing functions."