1. Industrial Marketing Research
and Intelligence
Vipin Kumar

2. Why do research?
The external environment is dynamic.
Knowledge becomes outdated.
To gather more information
Better Information  Better Decisions
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3. Limitations
Managers NEVER have all of the
relevant information that they need.
Constraints of time and money
Desired information is often more costly
than it’s worth.
Decisions are time sensitive. Can’t wait for
all of the information.
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4. When NOT to do research
Good research has already been done.
When decisions have been made and
won’t be altered by new information.
When management does not understand
scope necessary and won’t commit $.
Don’t have talent, won’t hire.
Uncertainty reduction justifies cost.
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5. Marketing Research Tasks
Estimate market potential
Analyze market share/share of customer
Track competitors
Identify market characteristics & trends
Analyze sales data
Sales forecasting: Existing/new products
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6. Key Concerns
Reliability: measures/methods yield
consistent results
Validity: research measures what it says
it measures; i.e. little or no error
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7. Types of Data
Primary
New information generated for specific task.
Can be expensive/time consuming.
Gather by survey, tests, observation, focus
groups, interviews.
Secondary
Existing information.
May not be in useful form.
Sources: government, trade/professional
associations, company records
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8. Sampling Issues
Sample vs. Census
Probability
Random, equal chance
Random, stratified
Non-Probability
Convenience
Judgment
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9. Questionnaires
Ask what you want to know
Watch length
Aesthetics
Easily understood; watch vernacular
Social desirability bias
Non-response bias
Question order effects
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10. Coding-Analysis-Interpretation
Data entry tedious.
Mistakes are made
Need to clean data
Use statistical tools to analyze data.
SPSS/SAS
Can data mine
Important to understand analysis
What results means
Limitations of method
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11. B2B vs. B2C Research I
Technology
Need to understand technical needs of
customers
Direct economic effect
Quality/Price trade-off very important
Organization, professionals
Understand multiple players, in sociopolitical setting
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12. B2B vs. B2C Research II
Smaller #s of buyers to study
Smaller sample sizes
Secondary data often exists
Tough to get buyer’s attention for
research
Need to know which buyer(s) to study
Need technical knowledge for research
Surveys take longer, cost more
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14. Marketing Intelligence
Continuous flow of information
Strategic and Tactical
Systematic and periodic
Better understanding of environment over
time
Collect from variety of sources
Customers, competitors, regulators, etc.
Constant vigilance
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15. Marketing Intelligence System I
People, Procedures, Computers
Acquires, Disseminates, Interprets, Stores
information about internal and external
environments
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16. Marketing Intelligence System II
 Transform raw data to useful information
 Can organize information by customer, competitor,
product line, territory, activity
 Sources
 Internal: sales, service, accounting
 External: government, trade associations, competitor
literature, customers, publications
 Output
 Periodic reports
 Special information needs
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17. Decision Support Systems
Computer-aided decision-making
Involve analysis, not just retrieval
Database: Repository of data
Statistics: Analyze data
Model: Patterns in the data; relationships
Optimization: Decisions leading to best
outcome given model
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18. Economic/Financial Factors
Competition oligopolistic
Power/Dependency relationships
Reciprocal: Doing business with
companies that do business with them.
Economic variables: interest rates,
inflation, business cycle
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