Doc Warwolf

1. INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM

   Marketing Managers are constantly required to make decisions. In most cases, decisions require selection among various alternatives. Further, 

marketing decisions would represent the commitment of firms' resources.

   Imagine a food company wants to market a new food product which is pre - 

;acme& The decisions are required to this food product characteristics 

such as taste, color, flavor, package size and type, price and promotion- 

al provisoes. Many alternative decisions are possible, however, the mana- 

ger must choose only one. Choosing among various alternatives is very 

rimy. The risk cannot be eliminated altogether, but the degree of risk can 

be reduced in several ways. The manager responsible for the new product can 

make better decisions if he has accurate and sufficient information on 

such matters as consumer's tastes and flavor preferences, the performance 

of alternative packaging materials, the prevailing price of competing products, 

and dealer and consumer's responses to a different type of promotional pro-

grams.

    In some situations, the required information may be readily available 

by direct observations. Sometimes, the managers own past experience may 

Provide a basis for decisions. Frequently, and especially in large opera- 

      observations and experience are not sufficient to make decisions. In

large companies, the final decision maker is usually too far removed from the point of sale to observe customer reactions directly. Even where such observations can be made, they can be misleading. When a new product fails, 

is it because of the taste of consumers? Is the price too high? Is the district- 

Is the button inadequate?

The complexity of many marketing problems makes it very hard to separate such effects without a systematic procedure for doing so. Experience

consists of accumulation of observations. Many managers believe that

through the experience they have learned, "what works and what doesn't". This

belief can be also misleading. The main limitation of experience is that

the conditions change and policies that work at one time may be very ineffective later on. Moreover, it is entirely possible to learn completely

erroneous "facts". Please note, that we do not undermine the importance of experience. As a matter of fact, there is no substitute for experience. The

purpose here has been simply to point out the short-comings of those decisions that are based on experience alone.

  3ecause direct observations and experiences are incomplete guides to

Marketing managers, it is often desirable to utilize the tools and technical-

Gittes of format research to obtain information needed for intelligence.

Original research requires substantial amounts of money and expenditure of time. As a rule of thumb, original research is always expensive and should be avoided when there are financial constraints. Therefore, the specialist should evaluate the extent and quality of information, already available within the company. Most of the time, substantial in-

   formation exists within the company or from outside the company. Most of the information required for research is available freely in public libraries, journal, publications, government, and private agencies there is always some costs attached to assembling and appraising even the freely available information. To repeat, there are basically two

   sources of information