MARKETING RESEARCH CASE EXERCISE
MARKETING RESEARCH FOR AN EXPORT OPERATION

Most Of the time marketers have to make daily decisions for which there is neither time nor money for special research. To provide the decision maker with data to support ongoing decisions, there must be an information system already in place. Information and data management is more complex for international markets than for the domestic market because of separation of time and space as well as wide differences in cultural and technological environments.

Qualities of a Useful System
Corporations have responded by developing marketing decision support systems. To be truly useful to the decision maker, the chosen system must be relevant, timely, flexible, accurate, exhaustive, and convenient.

· Relevant. The data gathered must have meaning for the decision-making process. Few companies can spend a lot of money collecting facts that are nice to know. So the system cannot be an electronic grapevine or Christmas tree on which to hang anything that comes to mind. There must be a well-understood and widely disseminated set of guidelines about what goes in, as well as a gatekeeper controlling the supply.

· Timely. When managers need to know something right away, it might be acceptable if the answers arrive in a couple of days, but not in a month. Conversely, when information becomes outdated, it should be replaced, deleted, or at least clearly labeled as being possibly erroneous.

· Flexible. Information must be available in the forms needed by management. A marketing decision support system should therefore permit manipulations of the format and combination of the data.

· Accurate. Accuracy is of primary importance in the international field. Information that is available one day may be invalid the next because of major changes taking place in the world.

· Exhaustive. The systems data bank should be reasonably exhaustive. Because of the interrelationships among variables, ah the factors that can influence a particular decision ought to be appropriately represented in the system. Because international marketing can be affected by many issues that do not come into play domestically, the necessity for an ample reservoir of pertinent data is apparent.

· Convenience. The system must be convenient to access and use. Time-consuming systems will not be used enough to justify their cost.

Conclusions
There are various reasons why international marketing decision support systems are being developed successfully. These reasons include technological advances in hardware and software, increased familiarity with technology, and acknowledgment by managers that acting without a sound basis is disastrous in the international arena.

1. Why is it so important to develop and maintain a decision support system for international marketing operations? What are some problems the system can overcome for the marketer?

2. When planning for the development of a decision support system for international marketing operations, what critical data or information would you design into the system? How would this data be helpful for understanding international markets?