THE INTERNATIONAL MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Step 1:
Defining the problem (the decision for which info. is needed) and research objectives along with:
­
market structure
·  size of market, stage of development etc.
­
product concept
·  meaning of product in a particular environment
Marketing research project may have one of the three types of objectives;
· Exploratory research - is to gather preliminary information that will help define the problem
and suggest hypothesis
· Descriptive research  -
is to describe things such as market potential for a product,
demographics, or attitudes of customers
· Causal research - is to test hypothesis about cause-and-effect relationships
Step 2:
Once research objectives are properly defined the marketer / researcher should then develop the detailed
plan for conducting the research. A detailed research plan should include the following five aspects;
Developing the research plan
­ Determining specific information needs
research objectives must be translated into specific information needs
·
­ Plan for gathering secondary information
information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose -
·
relevant, current, impartial (objectively collected & reported)
­ Primary data collection plan
information collected for the specific purpose at hand - research approaches : observation, survey, experiment
­ Deciding contact method
mail, telephone, personal
·
­ Detailing the sampling plan
sampling unit, sample size, sampling procedure
·
Step 3:
Implementing the research plan
· data collection phase is generally the most expensive & most subject to error  -  wrong
implementation,  problems in contacting respondents,  biased or dishonest answers,
problems with interviewers (mistakes or short-cuts)
Step 4:
Interpreting and reporting the findings
· both researchers & managers must work together at this stage  -  researchers know
methodology better while managers understand problems and possible management solutions
better

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