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how to work well as the product marketing manager at a ERP software company?

how to work well as the product marketing manager at a ERP software company? For example,the revenue forecast is the big headache.please give me some clues,or some weblinks.thank you very much

Public Comments

1. A basic tool to help you with forecasting is previous sales. You should see periods when sales were up and when they were down. Sometimes the peaks correspond to marketing activity like a trade show or direct mail. Other times ups and downs are caused by the seasons, especially in retail. Then there are industry specific peaks, like August for Federal Government customers. If you have no history, research your competitors. If they are a publically traded company their performance can be found in a number of resource locations. Finally, the goal in forcasting is to be exactly on target. Sounds obvious? Be careful. To over forecast will make your boss happy untill you fall short of goal and have excess inventory. To underforecast is even worse. You won't be able to meet customer demand. Good luck.
2. Wow. I actually WAS the product marketing manager at an ERP company for a whopping 7 months. Worst job I ever had. Only job I was ever fired from! (This is an indictment of the specific company and management I worked for, not the job itself----I've worked as a product manager for a manufacturing company for 9 years and do so today). Your revenue forecast needs to come, really, from your sales force. They need to tell you what they expect in new license sales, and at what confidence levels; your back end people should be able to help you with support contracts. In your business, there's a tremendous amount of year-to-year variance in new licenses (support is more predictable) because companies only buy new ERP systems once every 7 years or so. This is not something you're going to find on the web somewhere. Good luck.