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Marketing Research

Information Systems and Knowledge Management

Dr. Zafer Erdogan

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Data, Information and KnowledgeData, Information and Knowledge

Data—the raw facts—record measures of certain phenomena which are necessary to provide

Information—facts in a form suitable for managers to base decisions on.

Knowledge – is a blend of information, experience, and insights that provide a framework that can be applied when assessing new information or evaluating relevant situations.

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Characteristics of Valuable Information

Characteristics of Valuable Information

• Relevance

• Quality

• Timeliness

• Completeness

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Knowledge Management

Organizations make effort to capture, organize, and share what the organizations and its employees know.

They create knowledge that is broader, deeper and richer than data or information.

Knowledge Management is the process of creating an inclusive, comprehensive, easily accessible organizational memory often called the organization’s intellectual capital.

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Decision Support System

A computer-based system that helps decision makers confront problems through direct interaction with databases and analytical software programs.

Its purpose;

to store data and transform them into organized information that is easily accessible to marketing managers.

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A Decision Support System Has Two Components

Database A database is a collection of raw data arranged logically and organized in a form that can be stored and processed by a computer. e.g. mail list, population records…

SoftwareVarious types of programs that tell computers, printers, and other hardware what to do

Software consists of business intelligence systems, statistical software, spreadsheet software and analytical models.

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Business Intelligence Software

A decision support system’s business intelligence software allows managers to combine and restructure databases, – diagnose relationships, – discover patterns, – estimate variables,– otherwise analyze the various databases.

Much software helps user interaction.

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Decision Support Systems-cont

• Systematic accumulation of pertinent, timely, and accurate data is essential to the success of a decision support system.

• The managers of the decision support system, systems analysts, and computer programmers are responsible for the system as a whole.

• However, the task of providing input data is shared by many functions within the organization.

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Four Major Sources Of Input For A Decision Support System

InputAll numerical, text, voice, and image data entered into the decision system.

• Internal records• Proprietary Marketing research• Marketing intelligence• Outside vendors and external distributors

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Internal RecordsInternal Records

• Internal records that may become useful information for marketing managers.

• Accounting reports of sales and inventory figures, provide considerable data.

• Data about costs, orders, shipments, inventory, sales, and other aspects of regular operations are routinely collected and entered into the computer.

• Customer profiles

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Proprietary Marketing Research

• Emphasizes the company’s gathering of new data.

• Not conducted regularly or continuously.

• Projects conducted to study specific company problems– Survey findings– Test market results

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Marketing IntelligenceMarketing Intelligence

• A network of sources and regular procedures by which marketing executives obtain everyday information about nonrecurring developments in the external marketing environment.

For example;– e-mail logs of comments and complaints,– discovery of competition price changes, – news of industry technology

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Outside Vendors and External Distributors

Outside Vendors and External Distributors

• Distributors of market information as their products.

• Many organizations specialize in the collection and publication of high-quality information.

• E.G. A. C. Nielsen company, provides television program ratings, audience counts.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

• Bring together lots of pieces of information – customer profiles– sales– marketing effectiveness/responsiveness – market trends

• Provides the enterprise with a complete, dependable, and integrated view of its customer base.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The goal of the CRM system is to describe customer relationships in sufficient detail

So that;Management, salespeople, customer service,

and perhaps the customer can directly– access information e.g. other products a customer

has purchased– match customer needs with satisfying product

offerings– remind customers of service requirements

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Network & Electronic Data Interchange

Networking is the linking of two or more computers to share data and software programs.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the term used when one company’s computer systems is integrated directly with another company’s computer system.

For exampleWall-Mart exchanges data with its suppliers every evening via EDI

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CASE 2.1 HARVARD COOPERATIVE SOCIETY

1.What advantages does a decision support system have for a small business like the Harvard Cooperative Society?

2.How would a small business like the Harvard Cooperative Society’s decision support system differ from that of a major corporation?

3.Briefly explain or outline your opinion of the components of the Harvard Cooperative Society’s decision support system.

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InternetInternet

• A worldwide network of computers that allows users access to information and documents from distant sources.

• A combination of a worldwide communication system and the world’s largest library.

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URL & WWW

• Uniform resource locator– Web site address

• Graphic interface– 1000s of interconnected pages or

documents

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Search Engine

• A computerized directory to search the WWW– YAHOO -www.yahoo.com– HOTBOT - www.hotbot.com– GOOGLE - www.google.com

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Pull & Push Technology

Pull - data is delivered when requestedPush - data is delivered w/out request

Smart agents– Learns an individual user’s preferences– Automatically searches out information– Delivers information to the desktop

Cookies– Small computer files– Provides saves onto the computer of someone

who visits– Tracks websites and files visited

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Intranet & Internet2Intranet & Internet2

• Private data network• Uses internet standards and technology• Firewalls for security

• A collaborative effort involving over 100 universities, industrial organizations, and government offices in the US

• Objective is to create research network much faster than the current Internet. www.internet2.edu