Ask Slashdot: What's Your Company's Marketing-to-Engineering Ratio?

An anonymous reader writes "I just learned that the company I work for annually budgets ~$17,000 for non-labor engineering expenses, but budgets ~$250,000 for non-labor marketing and sales expenses. Am I just being cynical when I say that my company spends almost 15 times as much trying to convince the outside world that we make a good product, than it spends on actually making a good product? What's the marketing-to-engineering ratio at your company?"

Comments

Not directly comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

By excluding labour costs, you've skewed the facts. Engineers themselves are the focus of the engineering department, whereas adverts (a non-labour cost) are the focus of the marketing department.

Seems reasonable for non-labor costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing and sales have high expenses. They need to buy ads, for starters, and they often need to travel around the globe. In engineering, the bulk of the cost is the engineers themselves (which is excluded from your numbers). In certain industries they might need some expensive equipment, but that gets amortized over several years.