Ratio of Spend to Sales

A relatively old story, brought to my attention by a recent startup involvement:
" ... Booz & Company recently conducted the bi-annual refresh of its Customer Planning and Trade Spend study, surveying an extensive set of firms across several sectors in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space. The survey asked questions about trade spending, customer planning and how trade agendas affect sales. The results indicate that a majority of the companies believe they spend too many resources on trade management and are unhappy with the quality of the tools/systems available to manage investments. Interestingly, even the companies identified as leaders have the potential to significantly improve their trade-to-sales ratios through building out their capabilities. ... "