Market research, marketing intelligence, internal records and information analysis are the important components of marketing information system.
1. Marketing Research System
The orderly research conducted to solve special market related problems is called marketing research system. While carrying out marketing researches, goods or services, price, place, promotion, customers, sale competition etc. are deeply studied and carefully analyzed using different research methods and tools. The main purpose of marketing research is to provide reliable and sufficient information needed for taking marketing related decisions. In marketing research, at first problems should be defined. Then gradually, objective of the research should be prepared, research plan be developed, necessary information be collected and analyzed and conclusion be drawn. The major sectors of marketing research are as follows:
a) Product research: Product research is one of the important areas of marketing research. While researching a product, a detailed study and analysis is done on development of new product, product life cycle, brand loyalty, product positioning, product experiment, packaging, design etc.
b) Price research: Price research is also another important research area of marketing research. While researching price, detailed study and analysis is done on the method of pricing, trend of pricing, cost structure, price of competitors’ products and their pricing policy.
c) Place research: The other important area of marketing research is place research. While researching a place, a detailed study and analysis is done on warehouse, transport, distribution channel, channel structure, delivery cost etc.
d) Promotion research: Promotion research is also one of the important areas of marketing research. While researching a promotion, a detailed study and analysis is done on the effectiveness of advertisement, media of advertisement, effect of promotion etc.
e) Consumer research: Research should also be done on consumers in marketing research. A detailed study and analysis should be done on the type and nature of consumers, motivating factors, consumers’ need and wants, consumers satisfaction etc.
f) Sales research: The other important area of marketing research is sales research. While researching sales, a detail study and analysis is done on sales turn-over, market share, sale performance, future market, sale forecasting etc.
g) Competition research: Research should also be done on competitors while carrying out marketing research. Degree of competition and their strategy should be studied in detail and analyzed.
2. Marketing Intelligence System
The mechanism of collecting information related to marketing environment each day is called marketing intelligence. It informs about daily changes in the marketing environment. This helps business organization to identify their weak and strong aspects of competitors and analyze them. As a result, the business organization becomes able to make necessary plans and strategies to get success in competitive market.
Market intelligence is also called environmental scanning. It scans internal and external environmental factors affecting business organization and helps make proper business strategy to ensure organizational success.
There are two sources of marketing intelligence. They are (a) formal source and (b) informal source. Sales men, intermediaries, information centers, experts, private agencies etc. are formal sources and newspapers, trade journals, magazines, employees etc. are informal sources.
a) Formal sources: The formal sources of marketing intelligence are as follows:
- Salesmen: Salesmen perform their works living in their respective fields. So, they directly know about the changes taken place in market. A business organization should collect all information of such changes from salesmen and analyze them. The organization should make the salesmen skilled for this purpose and motivate them for good performance.
- Intermediaries: The intermediaries include dealers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers etc. They remain acting as intermediaries of different products in the markets. They know everything about market. So, a business organization should motivate them to get important information.
- Marketing information center: An information center can be established under marketing information system. In this system, a business organization secretly keeps its employees in competitors’ organizations as secret agents to collect information. Such secret agents send all necessary information about their policy, program, strategies etc.
- Specialist/expert: A business organization may also appoint specialists for collecting market information. Such specialists become skilled in scanning market environment.
- Private agency: A business organization may buy market information from private agencies. Such private agencies become efficient in collecting market information and analyze them.
b) Informal sources: The informal sources of marketing intelligence are as follows:
- Reading newspapers, magazines, trade journals etc.
- Having interactions with production manager, financial manager, personnel manager, research and development manager, sales manager, employees etc.
- Having interaction with customers, intermediaries, other concerned persons etc.
3. Internal Record System
The records kept as systematic arrangement of different activities done within a business organization is called internal record system. Internal record is an easily available source of important records.
a) Customer related record: The information about customers’ demand, their profile etc. is provided by customer related records. Order letters, bills, invoices, stock record, shipment paper etc. are included in this record.
b) Sales related records: Sales record provides information related to customers’ behavior, their expectation, sales quantity, sales trend, market segmentation etc. Such information can be found from sales record.
c) Other records: A business organization also keeps other records besides sales related records and customers related records. They are: special report, annual report, audit report, financial report etc. Such reports also provide useful information.
4. Marketing Decision Support System (MDDS)
Marketing decision support system is also known as decision support system- DSS. It is a co-ordinated collection of data, system, tools and techniques with supporting software and hardware by which an organization gathers and interprets relevant information from business and environment and turns it into a basis for marketing action. Marketing decision support system adds speed and flexibility to the marketing information system. According to William J. Stanton, DSS is a procedure that allows a manager to interact with data and methods of analysis to gather, analyze and interpret information. MDSS has the methods for analyzing data. These methods range from simple procedure such as computing ratio or graphs to sophisticated statistical techniques and mathematical models. The following figure depicts the relationship in a decision support system:
 |
| Structure of a decision support system |
The components of marketing decision support system are as follows:
a) Data bank: A business firm collects different information from different sources. The store where such information is kept is called data bank. Every necessary kind of information can be found in such data bank.
b) Method bank: Different kinds of statistical tools are needed to analyze collected information. For example: average percent, classification, tabulation, regression, co-relation, survey, diagram, cluster analysis, factor analysis etc. The store to keep such different methods is called method bank.
c) Model bank: Decisions need to be taken on different heads in marketing. Decision should be rational and effective. Different kinds of quantitative models should be used to bring simplicity and effectiveness in decision-making process. These models define interrelationship among different elements. These models include sale response, model, new product pretest model etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment