MAKING CUSTOMER
INFORMATION THE LIFEBLOOD
OF THE ORGANIZATION
Group : 4
ANDY
MARTIN
MARY
RINKA
NAN
CATHY
ANHEUSER-BUSCH
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Began as a small brewery in Missouri in 1860
Introduced America’s first national beer brand in 1876 Budweiser
Became the largest brewer in the US in 1957
It has 48.9% share of beer sales in the US and produces about 11
million bottles a year
In 2008 Anheuser-Busch and InBev merged creating AnheuserBusch InBev
Now it's the leading global brewer and one of the top five
consumer products companies in the world
MOST POPULAR BRANDS
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Brahma
Alexander Keith's
Budweiser
Bass
Natural Ice
Busch
Guaraná Antarctica
Rolling Rock
Stella Artois
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Jupiler
Beck's
Leffe
Hoegaarden
Staropramen
Michelob
Löwenbräu
Kokanee
Tinkoff
ABOUT BUD LIGHT
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Introduced in 1982
One of the first light beers in the world
Best-selling beer in the US
BUDNET
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Consumer and market data network
Drivers, distributors and other representatives are visiting stores
and keeping track of everything that’s going on – competitors’
promotion, position of products in the store, neighborhood
where the store is located...
Helps the company keep track of
o competitors
 their brands, position on the shelves, advertisements
o customers
 their sex, age, race, level of education
They know who wants to buy what, where and why
It’s easier for Anheuser-Busch to decide how and where to
promote their products
CONDUCTING MARKETING RESEARCH AND
FORECASTING DEMAND
The Marketing Research System
- Marketing Studies : to specific problems and opportunities
- Marketing Research define as the systematic
design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data and findings
relevant to specific marketing situation facing the company.
THE MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
- Define the problem and research objectives
- Develop the research plan
- Collect the information
- Analyze the information
- Present the findings
- Make the decision
Marketing
Research Process
GATHERING INFORMATION AND
SCANNING THE ENVIRONMENT
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Developing marketing plans involves making decisions. Accurate,
comprehensive, up-to-date information is essential to successful
decision making.
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Companies with superior information enjoy a competitive
advantage.
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Adecuate information enables companies to:
- choose its markets better
- develop better offerings
- execute better marketing planning
- forecast trends and demand fluctuations
- forecast competition's moves
MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEMS (MIS)
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MIS: consists of people, equipment and procedures to gather and analyze
information to be provided to the marketing decision makers (decision
support systems-DSSs).
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Today most large corporations have developed their own internal MIS.
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These systems provide managers with detail about buyers wants,
preferences and behavior.
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Many firms do not have a marketing research department but network
externally.
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Others have a department that limits its work to routine forecasting, sales
analysis and occasional surveys. These firms suffer a competitive
disadvantage.
WAYS OF COLLECTING MARKETING INFORMATION
1.
Internal data records: (it is cheap and easy to access but it is also incomplete
and unclassified)
a. People inside the firm:
executives (executive information systems-EISs)
engineers
scientists
purchasing agents
sales information system (Wal-Mart)
b. Information inside the firm:
orders
sales
prices
costs
inventory levels (Mattress Giant)
order-to-payment cycle
c. Data warehousing and data mining:
customer databases (Pizza Hut)
product databases
WAYS OF COLLECTING MARKETING INFORMATION (CONT'D)
2. External Sources:
a. From own supply chain:
suppliers
resellers
key customers
b. From customers:
customer profiling (e-business)
Independent Customer Goods and Service review forums:
- epinios.com
- consumerreview.com
- bizrate.com
customer complaint sites
customer advisory panels
distributor feedback sites
Interviews (face to face, telephone, postal questionnaire)
online customer feedback
WAYS OF COLLECTING MARKETING INFORMATION (CONT'D)
2. External Sources (Cont'd):
c. From competitors:
observing competitor's products
observing competitor's advertisement
dumpster diving (Procter & Gamble)
competitors' annual reports
trade show exhibits
d. From government data resources:
US census
SEC
US IRS
US Patent & Trademark Office
WAYS OF COLLECTING MARKETING INFORMATION (CONT'D)
e. Buying information:
custom marketing research firms
secondary commercial data supliers:
- AC Nielsen Company
- MRCA Information Services
- Information Resources Inc.
Trade associations
google Inc.
AskMe Corp.
EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL MARKETING
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
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P&G: leader in implementation of innovative IT. They have the most
sophosticated supply chain management system.
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Wal-Mart knows the number of sales for each product by store and total
every evening.
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Dupont commissioned marketing studies to understand personal pillow
behaivior.
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Pizza Hut has an extensive database which helps it target its marketing
better, and narrow the scope in promotions campaigns.
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Mcdonald's mystery shoppers has helped the firm enforce quality
standards.
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Budweiser's BudNet.
SOURCES OF IMPORTANT INTELLIGENCE
INFORMATION
1) People inside the company
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executives
engineers
scientists
purchasing agents
sales force
SOURCES OF IMPORTANT INTELLIGENCE
INFORMATION (CONT’D)
2 ) People Outside the company
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suppliers
resellers
customers
Competitors
published information
products
Sales
Patents
*** US Patents and trademark office - provides info on patents competitors
have filed
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annual reports
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business publications
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trade show
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exhibit
SOURCES OF IMPORTANT INTELLIGENCE
INFORMATION (CONT’D)
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press releases
advertisement
web pages
physical evidences
job posting
Internet – vast new source of competitor supplied information
online data basis and information search engines ( Dailog, Hoover’s, DalaStar,
LexisNexes, Dow Jones News Retrival, Pro Quest, Dun and Bradstreet Online
Access
*** US Security and Exchange commissions databases
- Provides financial info on public competitor
Examples:
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checking the parking lots of the competitor on a regular basis
can be used as a good gauge of performance for some businesses
(i.e restaurants, malls, etc.)
Google’s job posting for engineers which solely requires a
background on Microsoft software business revealed its future
plans to be more than just a search engine company.
Oracle was caught rifting through rival Microsoft ‘s
dumpsters
----- Dumpster diving is the practice of sifting through
commercial or residential trash to find items that have been
discarded by their owners, but which may be useful to the
dumpster diver.
In the summer of 2000, the Oracle Corporation admitting to accusations that it authorized
a covert intelligence-gathering operation on three lobbying groups funded by its chief
rival,
Microsoft. According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “The
clandestine operation came to light in June, after janitors reported they had been offered
hundreds of dollars [$1,200, to be exact] in cash for the trash removed from the offices
of the Association for Competitive Technologies, a group lobbying on behalf of
Microsoft in its federal antitrust case.” Confronted with this revelation, Oracle
chairman and founder, Larry Ellison told reporters, “All we did was try to take
information that was hidden and bring it to the light. I don’t think that’s arrogance.
That’s a public service.”
Oracle was allegedly looking for evidence that Microsoft was paying the lobby group to
influence its anti-trust case. Following this incident’s unearthing and the announcement
 that Ray Lane, its chief operating officer, quit, Oracle shares fell 13% and a JP Morgan
analyst downgraded Oracle’s rating to “market performer.”
Proctor and Gamble
admitted to “dumpster
diving” at rival Unilever’s
headquarters
• P&G had their competitive intelligence
operatives misrepresent themselves
to Unilever employees, claiming that they
were market analysts, journalists, and
students
• Although P&G denied this accusation,
the spying operation gathered about eighty
documents detailing Unilever’s plans for its
U. S. hair care business over the next three
years, including information on its launch
plans, prices and margins.
P&G and Unilever are fierce
competitors in the shampoo
industry. P&G, the world’s
largest producer of hair care
products, owns brands such as
Pantene, Head and Shoulders,
and Pert, whereas Unilever owns
competing brands Salon Selectives,
Finesse, and
ThermaSilk
P&G is trying to increase its position
in the industry by introducing
new
brands, like Physique, and buying
others, like Clairol.
How exactly did P&G gain this information?
First, managers at the company hired an outside firm to undertake the
operation. These corporate spies allegedly operated out of a safe house,
known as, “The Ranch,” which was located in Cincinnati, the same city as
P&G’s headquarters. The spies participated in “dumpster diving” operations,
or as some in the industry called it, “rubbish archeology.” This included
rummaging through
dumpsters on Unilever’s property in search of unshredded documents
containing key strategic plans.
P&G executives were aware that their snooping did not violate U.S. law,
but only that they, “violated [their] strict guidelines regarding [P&G]
business policies.”
If no laws were broken in the P&G/Unilever case, what does P&G’s
code of ethics say about how to deal with the situation?
Procter & Gamble’s reputation is earned by our conduct: what we say
and, more important, what we do; the products we make; the services
we provide; and the way we act and treat others. As conscientious
citizens and employees, we want to do what is right. For P&G, this is the
only way to do business. To conduct our business with integrity in a
lawful and responsible manner, we have to be alert to situations that
pose ethical questions.
And in directly addressing the issue of competitive
intelligence practices, it states:
“We collect competitive information through proper public or
other lawful channels but do not use information that was
obtained illegally or improperly by others, including through
misrepresentation, invasion of property of privacy, or coercion.”
CONCLUSION
Was Dumpster Diving Illegal?
According to a London-based expert on corporate security, much of
the law on intelligence gathering is “a muddle.” In fact, P&G’s rifling
through dumpsters on public property crossed no U.S. legal boundaries;
however, these laws vary from country-to country, as well as state-to-state.
In some states, trash is treated as abandoned property and is freely
accessible. In others, the law depends on if it is located in the
organization’s own dumpster or one owned by a refuse company. While
most competitive intelligence practices are unregulated, experts in the
field suggest that corporations use the “sniff test” to monitor their own
behavior. This means asking oneself, “how would this look on the front
page if it were to come to light?” If the answer is “bad,” then plans should
be scrapped or altered.
PROTECTING THE COMPANY FROM
COMPETITORS
Example:
 Unilever does “Competitive Intelligence training” in which
employees are taught to collect intelligence info as well as
protect company’s information from competitors.
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Unilever does a random check on internal security.
 Corporate
espionage practices such as
“dumpster diving” can provide the spying
company with crucial information that would
provide a competitive advantage. However, it
also poses a reputational threat to the company’s
image in case it gets caught.
 Do
the benefits outweigh the possible damage?
 Every
company needs market information to
some extent in order to run a successful
business. But investing large amounts of budget
in MIS may not be the best strategy for certain
types of companies.
 Which
companies are more likely to benefit
from this kind of strategy?
 insight:
position in the supply chain.