The relevance of marketing research in today’s World

Marketing research has become an essential part of any market related activity. The pre-requisite to entering a market is a systematic research. Marketer can gain the advantage of knowing customers, suppliers and competitors through marketing research. These parameters help in deciding whether a particular product is viable in a market. Marketing research is not only done for entering a new market but it may also be conducted for launching a new product in an existing market.

There are several options open for companies who wish to conduct marketing research. They may conduct the research on their own or may employ an external agency for doing so. The cost factor, time period taken and expertise of the firm to handle marketing research are some of the factors which are taken into consideration while making such a decision.

Marketing research enables a company to make marketing strategies, forecast future demand, know the market growth rate for their product categories and give industry and country specific information. Data crunching and extracting relevant information for marketing managers is the main task of market research firms.

Future cannot be predicted in totality due to changing environment  arising out of consumer attitude.  innovations , new entrants in the market, etc. Marketing Research helps in reducing the quantum of risk involved though may not be able to completely eliminate it. In other words, it can be considered as a safety step in the large capital investment in present day projects and long term returns.

Thus, we can conclude that the relevance of marketing research is immense in today’s dynamic marketing environment. Without marketing research a manager would be groping in the dark. The risk is greatly reduced if proper marketing research is done. Since the consumers, government policies and competition are in the external environment, it becomes difficult to control them.  The only way is to know them and this information is provided by research. 

Dr. Sartaj Khera

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Management Studies