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1. Explain the concept and purpose of marketing information (MIS) and decision support (DSS) systems (One paragraph). A marketing information system (MIS) brings together disparate items of data into a coherent body of information. An MIS also provides methods for interpreting the information the MIS provides. A marketing information system is a continuing and interacting structure of people, equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute pertinent, timely and accurate information for use by marketing decision makers to improve their marketing planning, implementation, and control.
The decision support systems (DSS) are a specific class of computerized information system that supports business and organizational decision-making activities. A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, and/or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions. 2. Define marketing research and explain its importance to marketing decision-making (One paragraph).
Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information – information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the methods for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes, and communicates the findings and their implications. American Marketing Asociation) While it may involve market research, marketing research is a more general systematic process that can be applied to a variety of marketing issues. 3. List the steps involved in conducting a marketing research project. Step 1. Identifying and defining your problem If conducting marketing research, it is likely that the organization has already identified a problem and an ensuing informational need. The problem or issue will likely be recognized by one or more levels of management.
Sometimes, further definition of the problem or issue is needed, and for that there are several tools you can use. Step 2. Developing your approach Once the problem is better defined, you can move onto developing your approach. Generally speaking, your approach should be developed almost exclusively around a defined set of objectives. Developing your approach should consist of an honest assessment of your team’s market research skills, establishing a budget, understanding your environment and its influencing factors, developing an analysis model, and formulating hypotheses.
Step 3. Research design This step is the most encompassing of all steps in marketing research, requiring the greatest amount of thought, time and expertise from internal/external market research experts. Since the intelligence eventually gained from the research is so closely related to the selected research design, this is the single most important step in marketing research, and the step most vulnerable to research errors.
Research design includes incorporating knowledge from secondary information analysis, qualitative research, methodology selection, question measurement & scale selection, questionnaire design, sample design & size and determining data analysis to be used. Step 4. Collecting the data Often called data collection or survey fielding, this is the point at which the finalized questionnaire (survey instrument) is used in gathering information among the chosen sample segments. Step 5. Performing data analysis
All analysis that can be performed, from complex to simple, depends on how the questionnaire was constructed. Less complex analysis on smaller data sets can be handled with any of a number of office suite tools, while more complex analysis and larger data sets require dedicated market research analysis software. Types of analysis that might be performed are simple frequency distributions, cross tab analysis, multiple regressions (driver analysis), cluster analysis, factor analysis, perceptual mapping (multidimensional scaling), structural equation modeling and data mining.
Step 6. Reporting and presentation Reporting and presentation, if not the most important of the steps in marketing research, is the second behind research design. Once marketing information about the target market, competition and environment is collected and analyzed, it should be presented in an organized manner to the decision makers of the business. For instance, an organization may want to report findings in the market analysis section of a business plan.
The data gathered was created to help guide business decisions, so it needs to be readily accessible and understandable to the decision makers. 4. Explain the profound impact of the Internet on marketing research (One paragraph). The internet has a profound impact on the accuracy, timeliness, conciseness, convenience and relevance of marketing research. As more and more people gain access to the Internet, online surveys have become increasingly popular.
Also, The Internet provides access to a wide variety of different types of secondary data that can be used by firms to analyze customers and competitors; demographic resources, periodical articles, print resources, internet resource sites, electronic databases. 5. Explain the concept of competitive intelligence (One paragraph). Competitive intelligence is information acquired by a market competitor about the companies with which it competes. Competitive intelligence might include pricing, advertising strategies, names of clients, technical advantages and disadvantages, market strengths and weaknesses, and so forth.
Competitive intelligence may be acquired from the competitor’s customers (current and former), suppliers, former employees, stockholder meetings, industry associations and trade shows, trade journals, newspaper articles, research studies, or advertising copy. When gathering intelligence, the marketer must be careful to avoid unethical or illegal methods such as using a job interview or bribery to elicit information from a competitor’s employee.
The marketer’s sales force is usually a prime source of competitive intelligence and should be trained to recognize and report this information. Competitive intelligence can be purchased from companies such as A C Nielsen and Market Research Corporation of America. 1. Kotler, P. , (1988) Marketing Management: Analysis Planning and Control, Prentice-Hall 2. Principles of Marketing, 11th ed. Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong. 2005. 3. http://www. netmba. com/marketing/research.