Marketing Information System & Environment Flashcards

Flashcards covering key definitions and concepts from the lecture on Marketing Information System, Marketing Research, Micro/Macro Environments, and Strategic Environment Responses.

Marketing Information System (MIS)

The people and procedures dedicated to assessing information needs, developing the needed information, and helping decision makers generate and validate actionable customer and market insights.

Internal Databases

Collections of consumer and market information obtained from data sources within the company's network, including sales transactions, website visits, costs, inventory reports, and shipment records.

Marketing Intelligence

Publicly available information gathered from suppliers, resellers, key customers, competitor website monitoring, internet searches, and tracking consumer conversations about competing brands.

Marketing Research

The systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization.

Marketing Research Process

A six-stage process comprising problem and purpose formulation, research design, data collection, data analyses, research report preparation, and decision making.

Exploratory Research

Marketing research used to gather preliminary information that helps define the problem and suggest hypotheses, typically involving qualitative studies.

Descriptive Research

Marketing research conducted to describe marketing problems, situations, or markets, such as product market potential or consumer demographics and attitudes.

Causal Research

Also known as explanatory research, this approach tests hypotheses regarding cause-and-effect relationships using experiments and tests.

Primary Data

Information collected specifically for the current research problem at hand, customized to the specific business purpose.

Secondary Data

Information that already exists somewhere, having been collected previously for another purpose.

Qualitative Research

An exploratory research approach using small nonrepresentative samples (10 to 50 respondents) and nonstatistical analysis to gain insight into underlying reasons and motives.

Quantitative Research

A structured research approach using large representative samples (100+ respondents) and statistical methods to quantify data and generalize results to a population.

Direct Qualitative Research

Qualitative research methods where the true purpose of the project is disclosed to participants, including in-depth interviews and focus groups.

Indirect Qualitative Research

Qualitative research techniques where the project's true objective is disguised from participants, such as projective techniques.

Microenvironment

The actors close to the company that directly affect its ability to serve customers, which the company can influence to some degree.

Macroenvironment

The larger societal forces affecting the entire microenvironment, over which individual companies have limited or no influence.

Suppliers

Microenvironmental actors that provide the necessary resources and raw materials for a company to produce its goods and services.

Marketing Intermediaries

Firms that assist companies in promoting, selling, and distributing goods to final buyers, including resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing services agencies, and financial mediaries.

Wholesaler

A reseller that buys large quantities of goods from producers, stores them in warehouses, and resells them to retailers.

Retailer

A channel reseller that sells products directly to final consumers.

Marketing Services Agencies

Specialized intermediary firms such as marketing research firms, advertising agencies, media companies, and marketing consultancies that assist with targeted marketing activities.

Physical Distribution Firms

Logistics and transportation companies that assist a business in warehousing and transporting goods to their destinations.

Financial Intermediaries

Institutions like banks, credit organizations, and insurance companies that help finance transactions or protect against risks associated with trading goods.

Consumer Markets (B2C)

Markets consisting of individual buyers and households purchasing goods and services for personal consumption.

Business Markets (B2B)

Markets that purchase goods and services for further processing or for use in their own production operations.

Competitor

Any entity meeting the same customer need with similar offerings, or in a broader sense, any entity competing for the customer's wallet.

Publics

Any group that holds an actual or potential interest in or impact on an organization's capacity to achieve its goals, such as financial, media, government, local, or internal groups.

Demographic Environment

The study of human populations in terms of size, location, age, gender, race, density, occupation, and other statistics.

Economic Environment

Macroenvironmental factors including income distribution, consumer spending habits, and economic variables that impact buyer purchasing power.

Natural Environment

The physical environment and natural inputs required by marketers, involving trends like raw material shortages, pollution, and environmental sustainability.

Core Beliefs and Values

Persistent cultural values handed down from parents to children and reinforced by institutions like schools, churches, and governments.

Secondary Beliefs and Values

Cultural values and opinions that are more adaptable to change, including personal views of self, society, organizations, nature, and the universe.

Proactive Responding

An aggressive management approach in which a company takes direct action to affect and shape forces in its marketing environment.

Passive Responding

An approach in which a firm passively accepts environmental forces without trying to shape them, often leading to marketing myopia.

Reactive Responding

A strategy where a business closely observes changes in environmental forces and formulates responses after they occur.

Reseller Markets

Markets that purchase goods and services with the intention of selling them to others at a profit.

Government Markets

Markets consisting of public agencies that purchase goods and services to produce community services or transfer them to those in need.

International Markets

Markets made up of buyers in foreign nations, including cross-border consumers, producers, resellers, and governments.

Technological Environment

Macroenvironmental forces that drive innovation, creating new product and market opportunities while reshaping the business landscape.

Political and Social Environment

Laws, regulatory bodies, and public interest groups that guide, influence, or restrict various organizational and individual activities in a society.

Cultural Environment

Institutions and broader societal forces that shape a population's fundamental values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors.

Environmental Sustainability

Developing business practices and operational strategies that foster an economic system capable of supporting the planet indefinitely.

Marketing Myopia

A short-sighted management focus on current products rather than underlying customer needs, often causing firms to passively miss major industry shifts.

Focus Group

A direct qualitative research method where an interactive discussion is conducted with a small group of participants guided by a trained moderator.

Projective Techniques

Indirect qualitative research methods designed to disguise the true study objective, encouraging participants to project their subconscious motives and feelings.