The Marketing Managers Dilemma

management, by and large, still has much to learn about managing the use of marketing research

as a tool. For example, how should one go about deciding when to use it? How can one begin to measure the value of the information a proposed research may disclose against the cost of getting

it?

One of the primary purposes of marketing research is to help management make decisions. It has other functions in connection with organization, staffing, supervision, and control, but its chief

usefulness certainly lies in the aid it provides in making policies, setting objectives, and preparing plans.

Even in the areas of organization, staffing, and control its role is chiefiy that of facilitating

sound decisions.

What are the kinds of decision situations in the handling of which marketing research can be useful to the marketing manager?

They seem to fall into at least five basic types.

1. Do we have a problem and, if so, exactly what is it?

2. What can we do in a given situation?

3. Shall we do a particular thing or not do it?

4. If we do a particular thing, shall we do it this way or that way?

5. Shall we go on doing what we are now doing, or shall we stop it or change the way we are doing

it?

The point is that the decision as to whether the information expected from a marketing research is

worth what it will cost must be made every time a research project is considered. The sole question

is how it shall be made--on the basis of a subconscious and often cursory casting up of the values

involved, or after a conscious and systematic attempt, however crudely made, to reduce those values

to their conceptual elements and assign dollar figures to each of them. May it not be possible

that the kind of analysis involved in the latter process will result in sounder decisions as to when

marketing research shall be done, and will increase significantly its usefulness as a tool of management?