A bridge between marketing and engineering

Ever heard of the marketing/engineering ratio? It is found that the most successful companies had ratios >1.0, spending more in front-end marketing than in engineering. Companies with low ratios tend to have inwardly focused engineering cultures.

The classic scenario (what I have always seen, observed and experienced) - in which someone who has invented something and has obtained an issued patent subsequently fails to recover the costs that went into the development and patenting process. Most scientists and engineers fall in love with their products and ideas, lack sufficient expertise in the marketing, sales and other key business activities. They will seldom or never kill the bad ideas/products early because they never believe they could ever come up with bad ideas. Ego problem! Wake up. You have to kill the bad ideas, and bring the good ones to market successfully. Let the marketeers do it. If they are not convinced with your ideas/products, that means it's not up to mark to the market.

Now I know most of the scientists and researchers is suffering from something called Inventoritis -A largely psychological disorder, is a root cause of the vast amounts of money spent on innovation R&D leading to no direct correlation between R&D spending and sales growth.