TABLE OF CONTENTS About this chapter
Marketing research is undertaken by an organization in order to provide timely and relevant information that can be employed by managers to allow them to make fully informed decisions relating to marketing activities.
After reading this chapter, you will understand:
The structure and role of a marketing information system.
The internal sources of marketing data available to an organization.
The difference between marketing intelligence and marketing research.
The types of market research and market research methods that an organization can undertake.
Approaches an organization can employ in carrying out marketing research activities.
The stages in the marketing research process.
The role e-marketing developments are having on marketing research activities.
Jobber and Rainbow (1977) describe a marketing information system (MkIS) as
a system in which marketing information is formally gathered, stored, analysed and distributed to managers in accord with their informational needs on a regular planned basis.
All organizations require a marketing information system if they are to have the ability to make well-informed marketing decisions. Obviously the size and sophistication of the MkIS will depend on the size and scope of an organization's operations.
The aim of an MkIS is to seek out data from the external marketing environment and then sift and analyse this information to identify any salient issues of which the organization's managers need to be made aware. The MkIS will then distribute this relevant information to the company's marketing decision-makers. This, however, is not a one-way process. The...
