Marketing Management 12e, Kotler and Kellner
Summary: Chapter 3 (pages 71 - 99)
Components of a Modern Marketing Information System
The major responsibility for identifying significant marketplace changes falls to the company’s marketers and companies with superior information enjoy a competitive advantage.
Marketing information system (MIS) = people, equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyse, evaluate and distribute needed, timely and accurate information to marketing decision makers. The MIS is developed from internal company records, marketing intelligence activities and marketing research. The MIS should be a cross between what managers think they need, what managers really need and what is economically feasible.
Internal Records and Marketing Intelligence
The Order to Payment Cycle
This forms the heart of the internal records system
Sales Information Systems
Timely and accurate reports on current sales are needed and important
Databases, Data Warehousing and Data Mining
Combining and using information from customer databases, product databases and salesperson databases. This data can be “mined” to give valuable insights.
The Marketing Intelligence System
This is a set of procedures and sources managers use to obtain everyday information about development in the marketing environment. The following can be undertaken to improve the quality of intelligence:
▪ Train and motivate the sales force to spot and report new developments
▪ Motivate distributors, retailers and other intermediaries to pass along important intelligence
▪ Network externally (legal and ethical actions are important here)
▪ Set up a customer advisory panel
▪ Take advantage of government data sources (e.g. census information)
▪ Purchase information from outside suppliers (e.g. market research companies)
▪ Use online customer feedback systems to collect competitive intelligence (e.g. message boards, threaded discussion forms, opinion...