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Marketing information system.
Concept of Marketing Information System.
Marketing information system is defined as people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort,
analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision
makers.
Marketing information system includes all the facts, estimates and opinions etc. that affect the
quality of decisions for firm’s survival and growth. Marketing Information System is an interesting,
continuing, future oriented structure of people, equipment and procedures designed to generate
and process an information flow to aid managerial decesions making in a company’s marketing
programs.
It is the set of procedures and sources used by executives to obtain their information about
marketing environment.
A marketing information system can be used operationally, managerially, and strategically for
several aspects of marketing. As we all know that no marketing activity can be carried out in
isolation, know when we say it doesn’t work in isolation that means there are various forces could
be external or internal, controllable or uncontrollable which are working on it. Thus to know which
forces are acting on it and its impact the marketer needs to gathering the data through its own
resources which in terms of marketing we can say he is trying to gather the market information or
form a marketing information system.
Companies with superior information enjoy a competitive advantage. They can choose their markets
better, develop better offering and execute better marketing planning. Every firm must organize and
distribute a continuous flow of information to its marketing managers. A marketing information
system (MkIS) consists of people, equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate and
distribute needed, timely and accurate information to marketing decision makers.
The MkIS begins and ends with marketing managers. First, it interacts with these managers to assess
their information needs. Next, it develops the needed information from internal company records,
marketing intelligence activities and the marketing research process. Information analysis processes
the information to make it more useful. Finally, the MIS distributes information to managers in the
right form at the right time to help them in marketing planning, implementation and control.
Internal Information.
Marketing managers need to have an internal analysis to determine where their own company
stands. For these they need regular sales reports, shipment reports, purchase reports, margin
reports, costing, customer service expenses etc. All these can be obtained through MIS and it is the
first type of information a marketing manager looks for.
Components of modern marketing information system.
The job of marketing information system is to process large quantities of marketing data-every bit of
pertinent data that can be gathered-and to present it.
Although every manager in an organization needs to observe the outside environment, the major
responsibility for identifying significant market place changes fails to the company’s marketers. They
have to advantages; they have disciplined methods for collecting information, and they spend more
time than anyone else interacting with customers and observing competition and other outside
firms and groups. Some firms have developed marketing information system that provides
management with rich detail about buyer wants, preferences and behavior.
Steps involved in designing and developing an MIS.
1. Defining the information needs.
2. Classifying the information.
3. Evaluating the cost of collecting and processing the information and comparing the cost vs
benefit.
4. Identifying the source of the information.
5. Designing the procedures for gathering, processing, sourcing and retrieval of the
information.
6. Securing the information.
7. Processing, analyzing and interpreting the information.
8. Utilizing the information.
9. Monitoring, maintaining, reviewing and improving the system.
The primary benefits of the Marketing Information System impact in the areas of functional
integration, market monitoring, strategy development, and strategy implementation.
Marketing Information System offers some other advantages:
1. Organized data collection.
2. A broad perspective.
3. A collection of important data.
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An avoidance of crisis.
Coordinated marketing plans.
Speed in obtaining sufficient information to make decisions.
Data collected and kept over several time periods.
The ability to do a cost-benefit analysis.
The disadvantages of a Marketing information system are high initial time and labor costs and the
complexity of setting up an information system. Marketers often complain that they lack enough
marketing information or the right kind, or have too much of the wrong kind. The solution is an
effective marketing information system.
Marketing information system is the marketing intelligence system producing accurate, sufficient
and timely information about marketplace developments with respect to customers, prospects, and
distributors and dealers, competitors, suppliers and various publics.