Benchmarking

Comparing the quality of the

organizations goods, services, or
processes with high-performing
competitors as a part of an effort to
address Total Quality Management

Degree of Centralization
Centralized Organizations
Authority is concentrated at the top
level
Very little delegation to lower levels

Decentralized Organizations
Decision making authority is delegated
as far down the chain of command as
possible

Organizing Marketing
Activities
Organization
Centralized
Decentralized

Structure
Function
Product
Region
Type of Customer

The Marketing Control

Process
Establishing performance standards,
evaluating actual performance by
comparing it with standards and
reducing the differences between
desired & actual performance
1. Establishment of performance
standards
2. Evaluation of actual performance
relative to established standards
3. Corrective action, if necessary

Chapter 3
The Marketing Environment

The Marketing Environment

Environmental Scanning
The process of collecting information
about forces in the marketing
environment

Environmental Analysis
The process of assessing and
interpreting the information gathered
through environmental scanning
How you deal with the information
collected during the

Environmental Forces

Competitive
Political
Technological
Sociocultural
Legal & Regulatory
Economic

Competitive Forces
Most firms have competition
Brand (Intra-Type): Firms that market products with
similar features & benefits to the same customers at
similar prices
Product (Intra-Type): Firms that compete in the same
product class but market products with different
features, benefits & prices
Generic (Inter-Type): Firms that provide very
different products that solve the same problem or
satisfy the same basic customer need
Total Budget Competitors: Firms that compete for
the limited financial resources of the same customer

Selected Characteristics of
Competitive Structures
Chart

Economic Forces
The Business Cycle: A pattern of
economic fluctuations that has four
stages
Prosperity
Recession
Depression
Recovery

The Business Cycle

Buying Power & Income

Buying Power: Resources such as money,
goods, and services, that can be traded in
exchange
Income: the amount of money received
through wages, rents, investments, pensions,
and subsidy payments
Disposable income: after-tax income
Discretionary Income: Disposable income
available for spending and saving after an
individual has purchased the basic necessities

Political Forces
The book muddles political and legal forces
Enactment of legislation
Legal decisions interpreted by courts
through civil & criminal cases
Influence of regulatory agencies
Marketers
Adjust to conditions
Influence the process through contributions
and lobbying

Marketing Research &

Information Systems
Chapter 5

Marketing Research
The systematic design, collection,
interpretation, and reporting of
information to help marketers solve
specific marketing problems or take
advantage of marketing
opportunities

Benefits of Marketing
Research

Facilitates strategic planning

Assesses opportunities/threats
Ascertains potential for success
Helps determine feasibility of a
strategy
Improves marketers ability to make
decisions

Question
How important is marketing research
to a firms success?
Do you think it is worth it to pay an
outside organization to help?

The Marketing Research

Process

1.
Locating
and
defining
issues or
problems

2.
Designing
the
research
project

3.
Collecting
data

4.
Interpreti
ng
research
finding

5.
Reporting
research
findings

Step 1: Locating & Defining

Problems or Research Issues
Focus on uncovering the nature and
boundaries of a situation
The first sign of a problem is a departure
from normal or expected results (for
example, via the CONTROL mechanism
in marketing strategy)

Define the problem

Research will often be in-depth

Step 2: Designing the Research

Project
Research Design
An overall plan for obtaining the info
needed to address a research problem
or issue

Hypothesis
An informed guess or assumption about
a certain problem or set of
circumstances
Accepted or rejected hypotheses act as
conclusion for the research effort

Types of Research
Exploratory Research
Conducted to gather more information about a
problem or to make a tentative hypothesis
more specific
How are consumers car buying habits changing?

Conclusive Research
Designed to verify insights through objective
procedures and to help marketers in making
decisions
What percentage of consumers will consider an
electric car purchase?

Continued
Descriptive Research
Used to clarify the characteristics of certain phenomena to
solve a particular problem
Demands prior knowledge
Assumes problem is clearly defined
May require statistical analysis

How are consumers gathering information to assist in car

buying?

Experimental Research
Research that allows marketers to make casual inferences
about relationships
Provides strong evidence of cause & effect
Need a dependent variable and independent variable(s) in
order to set-up research project

Reliability and Validity

Reliability
A condition existing when a research
technique produces almost identical
results in repeated trails

Validity
A condition existing when a research
method measures what it is supposed to
measure

Step 3: Collecting Data

Primary Data
Is observed, recorded, or collected directly
from respondents
Is collected to address a specific problem that
cannot be answered by secondary data alone

Secondary Data
Is compiled both inside and outside the
organization
Is for some purpose other than the current
investigation

Methods of Collecting Primary Data

Population
All the elements, units, or individuals of
interest to researchers for a specific study

Sample
A limited number of units chosen to
represent the characteristics of the
population

Sampling
The process of selecting representative units
from a total population