IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 6 : UNIT 3 : Q - 1. What are the different types of information that a marketing manager needs for making marketing decisions?

 Ans. INFORMATION NEEDS IN MARKETING

Marketing information system plays an important role in providing all that information that the marketing managers need in making strategic as well as tactical marketing decisions. Marketing managers need a variety of information so as to be able to discover market opportunities and threats, select target markets, develop suitable marketing mix strategies and periodically evaluate the firm's marketing performance. Exactly what information is needed depends upon the specific marketing management task being faced by the manager Marketing Information and his accumulated experience/knowledge and time frame involved in the decision making and Research. Broadly speaking, a marketing manager faces two broad types of marketing tasks: (1) market opportunity/threat analysis, and (2) search for causes/alternatives, for making marketing decisions.

1. Market Opportunity /Threat Analysis The first task relates to market opportunity/threat analysis. This is accomplished by undertaking either situation analysis or company performance analysis. Situation analysis involves a detailed analysis of various components of company's marketing environment. The information needed by the marketing manager to understand marketing environment is as follows: 

• Demographic environment : Population size and growth rate, gender ratio, age structure, population density and mobility.
• Competitive environment : Extent and nature of competition in the market. 
• Support environment : Availability, quality and cost of power, labour, raw materials, components and machines; quality and costs of advertising and research services, availability and costs of middlemen, etc.
• Economic environment : GNP and per capita income; interest rate; inflation; economic and commercial policies.
• Technological environment : Level and cost of technology adoption.
• Socio-cultural environment : Religions, languages, education levels, aesthetics, beliefs and attitudes, lifestyles and business customs. 
• Political and legal environment : Ideology of different political parties, stability of government, various marketing legislations. 

Most of this information is usually collected from the external secondary data sources.

The other kind of analysis undertaken to understand market opportunities/threats is referred to as company performance analysis. By undertaking an analysis of the company's past performance, a manager is able to identify products/brands and market segments where company is doing well, and as such constitute opportunities for the company for further growth and investments. Product lines or market segments where company is not performing well or where company is witnessing constant decline in its sales/profits represent areas of threats and concerns for the company. For undertaking such an analysis, a marketing manager requires sales and marketing expenses data for the company as well as for the industry as a whole. For an effective analysis, overall sales and marketing expenses figures alone are not sufficient. What is required is product-, brand-, area- and period-wise breakup of the company and industry sales and marketing expenses. Most of this information is collected from the company's accounting records and the trade and industry publications. 

2. Search for Causes or Alternatives 

The other kind of managerial task faced by a marketing manager relates to search for causes or alternatives pertaining to a marketing problem. In case a marketing manager finds a product not performing as per the companies expectations, he needs information about possible causes of poor product performance in the market. Since the reasons might relate to short term as well as long term factors, and might have their origin in price and non-price factors such as product quality, image, promotion or distribution; a marketing manager needs detailed information on all such aspects before he car1 be sue as to what exactly are the factors responsible for poor product performance. In a similar vein, a marketing manager requires information from a variety of sources such as customers, retailers/distributors, salesman and competitors to identify possible alternatives for improving the product acceptance and sales in the market. The information needed in this connection is generally collected from the secondary as well as primary data sources both internal and external to the company.

Once the marketing manager knows as to what reasons are responsible for poor performance of a product in the market and what alternatives exist to improve the company sales in future, he needs to make a final decision about the specific course of action to be taken among several alternatives. To be able to make a final decision, marketing manager requires information about the possible costs and outcomes associated with each of the identified alternatives along with the information about uncertainties associated with each outcome. Most of this information is collected first hand from the sources internal and external to the organization.