Sales Advice & Insights

This section is where you'll find expert advice, selling tips, and insights from NETSEA and its members. We encourage our members to contribute an article for publication on our website.

NETSEA/Mass High Tech Revenue Forecast Survey Shows Cautious Optimism for Q1 and 2009

This survey was sent to select New England technology executives to assess Q1 and 2009 revenue and sales expectations. The survey was conducted on behalf of NETSEA and Mass High Tech by OPEXEngine, which develops operating benchmarks for technology companies.

Read the Mass High Tech article: Tech exec survey shows optimism

We at NETSEA were happy to see how positive NE tech executives were in their forecasts, despite the word on the street among sales executives that this is one of the hardest quarters in memory—and for some of us, our memory goes back to 2001 and even the early '90s.

Positive Revenue Forecasts
More than 170 NE tech companies participated in the survey, mostly in software, internet, bio med-tech, and telecom tech. The primary respondents were CEOs and VPs of Sales.

Almost 40% expect revenue growth in Q1 over 2008, about 30% expect Q1 to be essentially flat, and about 30% expect a decrease in revenues in Q1 compared to 2008. The outlook for full year revenues is even more optimistic, with almost 55% of responding companies expecting sales growth in 2009 over 2008, including about 18% expecting more than 20% growth, despite the difficult economy.

Sales Hiring
Also good news for New England sales executives is that only about 5% of companies expect to layoff sales headcount in the first half of 2009, and about 30% expect to hire new sales headcount. The rest expect sales headcount to remain essentially flat throughout the year.

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