Overview

Most marketing people claim that their greatest fear is that they are in abject ignorance of their place in the market. Most marketing people suspect that they may not have fully grasped their full worth in the marketplace. Very few marketers would claim with confidence that they have got their finger on the pulse at all times.

If you can relate to any of the above, this chapter is for you. It is about where to look on the Internet and how to go about alleviating those fears. It will help you to design and implement the basis for an effective management information system (MIS). This can then improve strategic management decisions and lead to vastly improved marketing.

The MIS is an information system using formalized procedures to provide managers at all levels in all functions with appropriate information from all relevant sources (both internal and external to the firm) to enable them to make timely and effective decisions for planning, directing and controlling the activities for which they are responsible.

The essence of this definition is that MIS is a database of internal and external information that managers can use as an aid to their analysis, decision-making, planning and control purposes. The emphasis is on the use of information and not on how the information is processed. In this chapter, and in Chapter 3, we will focus on information collection and research, and we will show how the Internet can transform this activity. Chapter 4 will address...