C H A P T E R

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INTRODUCTION

The task of marketing managers is to set plans, control operations and make decisions. To do this they need appropriate information, being provided by forecasting, financial analysis and tools, marketing research and information system technology.

WHY DOES MANAGEMENT NEED INFORMATION FOR MARKETING ANDSALES?'What use is Management Information for Marketing and Sales to me?' You may bethinking. 'Why do I need to know about financial analysis?' is a thought that might be going through your mind. 'How can I do a better job by knowing about information systems and technology, we have the IT department for that', might be your opinion.

Don't worry by the time, you get to the end of this Study, you should realise thevalue of management information to you as a marketer. Ifyou want convincingread what Laura Mazur has to say (Accountability, Marketing Business,February 1996):

'Marketing accountability is not just about speaking in a language accountants canunderstand. ln fact, that is something of a red herring, The real issue is information: doesmarketing have the information it needs, the tools to get it, and does it use those tools andthat information effectively?

Research carried out among 200 finance and marketing directors of blue-chip companies forthe Marketing Forum suggests not. Well over half of the marketing directors surveyed repliedthat their companies' information systems did not provide them with the information tney needto be effective.

1 Management Information for Marketing & Sales

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This is not about a lack of information. Most marketing directors are drowning in data as it is.It is about using modern technology to collect and manipulate up-to-date internal and externalinformation both to measure the effectiveness of current marketing plans, and to examinedifferent variables as a basis for future strategy.'

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Essential Readings

1) Management Information for marketing & sales, BPP publication, 2010.2) Boone, Louis E & Kurtz, David L. (2010) Contemporary Marketing 2011, South-

Western College Publishing; 14th editionMarketing Management , Russ Winer, Ravi Dhar 4th Edition Prentice-Hall, Inc.

3) Marketing Strategy Ferrell, & Hartline ,5th South Western Publisher, (Cengage, 2011)

4) Lecture PowerPoint Presentation Slides Chapter 1

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should know about and explain:

Why does management need information for marketing and sales? Analysis, planning, implementation, control: APIC Information Decision making and information Forecasting Financial analysis and tools Marketing research Information systems and technology

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Information

Information is anything that is communicated. It is the life blood of an organisation, flowing through it and prompting actions and decisions: without information, no one in an organisation could take a single effective action. As a simple example, giving an order to a subordinate is a flow of information: the manager or supervisor gathers information about a problem, processes it to decide what needs to be done, and then communicates his or her decision as an order to the subordinate.

Information is sometimes said to be processed data. In normal everyday speech, the terms data' and 'information' are often used interchangeably. There are, however, stricter definitions of the two terms which make an important distinction between them.

Data is the raw material for data processing. It is unprocessed information. Data is collected and then processed into information. For example, '1734261' is data.

Information is data processed in such a way as to be of some meaning to the person who receives it. For example, units sold in sales area B in period 8: 1,734,261' is information as is account 173/4261 has a nil balance'.

Hard and soft information

Successful marketers are knowledgeable marketers. The world has many intuitively brilliant and sometimes lucky marketers, but the most successful marketers I know are the best informed. They know their target audiences, know their partners, and know which marketing tactics work and which ones don’t. They know what theircompetitors are doing almost as soon as they do it. Most important, they are aware of what they don’t know and resolve to find it out. They crave information. They devour it on the job and off the job. They always want to know more, and when they acquire new information, they use it effectively.

Information is often said to be hard if it is data collected for a specific purpose in an organised way or in a scientific manner. Soft information is acquired by managers, often in the course of conversation with suppliers, customers and colleagues in an unstructured and unplanned manner, with no specific purpose in mind. Soft data is stored informally usually within the brain of the manager concerned and retrieved when a specific occasion triggers thought processes. Mintzberg and many management commentators stress the importance of this 'soft data' over and above 'hard data'. Soft data often contains a high degree of qualitative information. Informed gossip may provide managers with soft data which they put together with other data (maybe hard data) to turn it into information which they may decide to use for a specific purpose.

For example, a sales manager on a visit to a customer may find out in the course of conversation that the customer buys from another supplier who specialises in providing a particular type of service. On returning to the office the sales manager could use this 'soft data' to investigate the possibility of supplying a similar or better type of service and thereby competing more effectively with the other supplier if this is appropriate. This soft data may not be collected in any management information system planned by the firm.

Similarly, a member of the sales team speaking on the telephone with a long standing customer may happen to acquire information about another customer and the difficulties they are experiencing in paying their bills. This information could be passed on internally to the accounts department for them to check the customer's account and for them to assess the possible risks of doing any further business.

Information and levels of decision making

Information is required for all levels of decision making taken within an organisation, whether strategic, tactical and operational. The decision-making levels,

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and the types of marketing and selling decisions taken at these levels, are shown in the following table.

The following diagram summarises the marketing research process. This process will, course, be discussed in more detail later in the Study Text.

Many managers with limited research experience hold misperceptions about marketing research. These misperceptions can be traced to the marketing research community, which has created a forbidding mystique about its own profession and its products.

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Marketing researchers have developed their own jargon, their own reverence for the most sophisticated approaches, and their own propaganda that implies that only those who are properly trained—the research priests—can conduct valid, reliable marketing research.

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CONCLUSION

This chapter has hopefully given you a flavour of the topics which we will be looking at in this Study Guide. Some of them you may think are more relevant to you as a marketer than others. Remember, however, that marketing and sales impact on all areas of an organisations operations and therefore it is only right and proper that you have some awareness of the invaluable sort of information available to you as a marketer in, for example, the finance function of your organisation.

Information is required by marketing and sales management for analysis, planning, implementation and control: APIC.

Data is the raw material for data processing. Information is data processed in such a way as to be of some meaning to the person who receives it.

Information must have a purpose otherwise it is useless. Information which fulfils its purpose is known as good information.

Information is termed hard if it is data which has been collected for a specific purpose in an organised or scientific manner. Soft information is acquired in an unstructured and unplanned manner with no specific purpose in mind.

Information is required for strategic, tactical and operational decisions.

Forecasts of future demand must take account of market potential and sales potential.

Both the management accounting function and financial statements can provide invaluable information for marketing and sales.

Marketing research is made up of market research, product research, price research, sales promotion research and distribution research.

In brief, the marketing research process has the following stages.

o Define the problem and research objectives

o Develop the research plan

o Collect and process data

o Analyse and interpret information

o Report on the findings

Management need a marketing and sales information system which will provide information to enable them to analyse, plan, make decisions, implement and control.

Information technology and databases, EPOS, EFTPOS and so on have transformed the ways in which markets, organisations and managers are able to operate.___________________________________________________________________________