Marketing Information and Research

Decision-making in organisations requires relevant information to be available if the outcomes are not to be based on those often-used management support tools of ‘gut feel’ or rationalised personal preference. Within this, marketing information is of vital importance. Indeed, one of the key roles of marketing professionals should be the supply of market and marketing-performance information, which will enable the rest of the organisation to make decisions about the market-related areas of their responsibilities. As examples, corporate or strategic managers need good market environment and competitor information to be able to set the overall strategic direction of the organisation, and operations managers need to understand the critical success factors associated with the delivery of their product or service, since these should form the basis for the design of their operating systems.