Marketing Research
Information Systems and
Knowledge Management
Dr. Zafer Erdogan
1
Data, Information and Knowledge
Data—the raw facts—record measures of
certain phenomena which are necessary to
provide
Information—facts in a form suitable for
managers to base decisions on.
Knowledge – is a blend of information,
experience, and insights that provide a
framework that can be applied when
assessing new information or evaluating
relevant situations.
2
Characteristics of Valuable
Information
•
•
•
•
Relevance
Quality
Timeliness
Completeness
3
Knowledge Management
Organizations make effort to capture, organize,
and share what the organizations and its
employees know.
They create knowledge that is broader, deeper
and richer than data or information.
Knowledge Management is the process of
creating an inclusive, comprehensive, easily
accessible organizational memory often
called the organization’s intellectual capital.
4
Decision Support System
A computer-based system that helps decision
makers confront problems through direct
interaction with databases and analytical
software programs.
Its purpose;
to store data and transform them into
organized information that is easily
accessible to marketing managers.
5
A Decision Support System
Has Two Components
Database
A database is a collection of raw data arranged
logically and organized in a form that can be
stored and processed by a computer. e.g. mail list,
population records…
Software
Various types of programs that tell computers,
printers, and other hardware what to do
Software consists of business intelligence systems,
statistical software, spreadsheet software and
analytical models.
6
Business Intelligence Software
A decision support system’s business
intelligence software allows managers to
combine and restructure databases,
–
–
–
–
diagnose relationships,
discover patterns,
estimate variables,
otherwise analyze the various databases.
Much software helps user interaction.
7
Decision Support Systems-cont
• Systematic accumulation of pertinent, timely,
and accurate data is essential to the success
of a decision support system.
• The managers of the decision support
system, systems analysts, and computer
programmers are responsible for the system
as a whole.
• However, the task of providing input data is
shared by many functions within the
organization.
8
Four Major Sources Of Input For A
Decision Support System
Input
All numerical, text, voice, and image data
entered into the decision system.
•
•
•
•
Internal records
Proprietary Marketing research
Marketing intelligence
Outside vendors and external distributors
9
Internal Records
• Internal records that may become useful
information for marketing managers.
• Accounting reports of sales and inventory
figures, provide considerable data.
• Data about costs, orders, shipments,
inventory, sales, and other aspects of regular
operations are routinely collected and entered
into the computer.
• Customer profiles
10
Proprietary Marketing Research
• Emphasizes the company’s gathering of
new data.
• Not conducted regularly or continuously.
• Projects conducted to study specific
company problems
– Survey findings
– Test market results
11
Marketing Intelligence
• A network of sources and regular procedures
by which marketing executives obtain
everyday information about nonrecurring
developments in the external marketing
environment.
For example;
– e-mail logs of comments and complaints,
– discovery of competition price changes,
– news of industry technology
12
Outside Vendors
and External Distributors
• Distributors of market information as their
products.
• Many organizations specialize in the
collection and publication of high-quality
information.
• E.G. A. C. Nielsen company, provides
television program ratings, audience counts.
13
Customer Relationship Management
(CRM)
• Bring together lots of pieces of
information
– customer profiles
– sales
– marketing effectiveness/responsiveness
– market trends
• Provides the enterprise with a complete,
dependable, and integrated view of its
customer base.
14
Customer Relationship Management
(CRM)
The goal of the CRM system is to describe
customer relationships in sufficient detail
So that;
Management, salespeople, customer service,
and perhaps the customer can directly
– access information e.g. other products a customer
has purchased
– match customer needs with satisfying product
offerings
– remind customers of service requirements
15
Network & Electronic Data Interchange
Networking is the linking of two or more
computers to share data and software
programs.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the term
used when one company’s computer systems
is integrated directly with another company’s
computer system.
For example
Wall-Mart exchanges data with its suppliers
every evening via EDI
16
CASE 2.1 HARVARD COOPERATIVE SOCIETY
1. What advantages does a decision support
system have for a small business like the
Harvard Cooperative Society?
2. How would a small business like the Harvard
Cooperative Society’s decision support
system differ from that of a major
corporation?
3. Briefly explain or outline your opinion of the
components of the Harvard Cooperative
Society’s decision support system.
17
Internet
• A worldwide network of computers that
allows users access to information and
documents from distant sources.
• A combination of a worldwide
communication system and the world’s
largest library.
18
URL & WWW
• Uniform resource locator
– Web site address
• Graphic interface
– 1000s of interconnected pages or
documents
19
Search Engine
• A computerized directory to search the
WWW
– YAHOO -www.yahoo.com
– HOTBOT - www.hotbot.com
– GOOGLE - www.google.com
20
Pull & Push Technology
Pull - data is delivered when requested
Push - data is delivered w/out request
Smart agents
– Learns an individual user’s preferences
– Automatically searches out information
– Delivers information to the desktop
Cookies
– Small computer files
– Provides saves onto the computer of someone
who visits
– Tracks websites and files visited
21
Intranet & Internet2
• Private data network
• Uses internet standards and technology
• Firewalls for security
• A collaborative effort involving over 100
universities, industrial organizations, and
government offices in the US
• Objective is to create research network much
faster than the current Internet.
www.internet2.edu
22