Marketing Research Management

With the increasing use of marketing research these days, it is being realized that it is a complex task and has to be properly managed if optimum results are to be obtained. Accordingly, the management of marketing research, has assumed considerable importance nowadays.

Would you tell me what is research management?

Blankenship and Doyle provide a very lucid answer to this question:

Research management concentrates on direction and administration of the processes, projects, personnel, finances and agencies engaged in research. Its duties include seeing that the research design is right for the task and that the study is carried out properly. It sees to it that the presentation of results to management is handled properly and that all these activities are administered within a controlled budget. It means that proper research organization has to be set up to handle individual projects and task.

It will be seen that research management includes host of interrelated activities. Thus, the types of research projects to be undertaken, the selection, the selection of research personnel, financing of research manager has to be concerned. He has to ensure that a suitable research design is developed and that the study is carried out on the right lines, according to predetermined schedule and within the budget allocated for the purpose. As these activities are interrelated, if any one of them is not conducted properly, it will have an adverse impact on the other. For example, if a research project is not conducted according to the time schedule laid down earlier, it will increase the cost and make it impossible to complete the project within the allocated fund.

Importance of Research Management

in attaining the As we know that marketing concept is useful objective of integrated marketing, research management is relevant for making marketing research really useful. By superior management is relevant for making marketing research technique can be pulled together and coordinated so that marketing research can be made really effective.

The marketing manager who understands only techniques Each must understand how to put together all the efforts falling within his sphere of responsibility.

From improved marketing research management, a firm can enjoy tow major advantages. These are:

• Marketing research will be more helpful to marketing management in decision-making, and
• Marketing research will be more economically and more effectively.

The role of research has greatly increased in the field of business and economy as a whole. The study of research methods provides you with the knowledge and skills you need to solve the problems and meet the challenges of today’s modern pace of development. Three factors stimulate the interest in a scientific research to decision making.

• The manager’s increased need for more and better information.
• The availability of improved techniques and tools to meet this need
• The resulting information overload

The usefulness and contribution of research in assisting marketing decisions is so crucial that it has given rise to the opening of a new field altogether called ‘marketing research’. Market research is basically the systematic gathering, recording and analyzing of the facts about business problems with a view to investigate the structure and development of a market for the purpose of formulating efficient policies for purchasing, production and sales. Research with regard to demand and market factors has great utility in business. Market analysis has become an integral tool of business policy. Once sales forecasting is done, the Master Production Schedule (MPS) and Material Requirement Planning (MRP) can be efficiently done within the limits of the projected capacity based on the MPS Budgetary control can be made more efficient, thus replacing subjective business decisions with more logical and scientific decisions.

Modern industry with its large-scale operations tends to create a gulf between the customer and the manufacturer. Particularly when business is too big and operations are too far-flung, one cannot depend upon casual contacts and personal impressions. Research methodology has been developed as the tool by which business executives keep in touch with their customers. If an entrepreneur has to make sound decisions, he must know who has customers are and what they want. To a certain extent he relies on his salesmen and his dealers to supply him with market information but in recent years, more and more firms executives have turned to research methodology as a medium of communication between the customer and the company.

Marketing research is the link between the manufacturer and the consumer and the means of providing consumer-orientation in all aspects of the marketing function. It is the instrument of obtaining the knowledge about the market and consumer through objective methods, which guard against the manufacturer’s subjective bias.

Many Researchers define marketing research as gathering, recording and analyzing of all facts about problems relating to the transfer and sale of goods and services from producer to consumer.

Research methodology is an essential prerequisite for consumer- oriented marketing. It is necessary for developing the marketing strategy where in factors under the control of the organization, viz., product distribution system, advertising, promotion and price can be utilized so as to obtain maximum results in the context of the factors outside the control of the organization viz., economic environment, competitor and laws of land.