The purpose and use of marketing research

Marketing research is always carried out with the goal in mind of supporting informed decision making.

A decision maker (called "manager" in the graphic below) can take decisions based on research fed with data from primary sources (e.g. phone interviews, questionnaires, passenger counts) and/or from secondary sources (e.g. the motorisation index). Since primary data requires more effort and resources to collect, it makes sense to start with secondary source information and, if necessary, to fill in gaps by collecting and analysing your own data.

Data are obtained from a variety of sources and incorporated to support both operational and political decision making (see the example of trolleybuses in Gdynia in a later unit).

The image below shows the structure consisting of people, equipment and procedures needed to gather, sort, analyse, evaluate and  distribute necessary information in a timely and accurate way to decision makers.

Source: A. Kaniewska-Sęba, G. Leszczyński, B. Pilarczyk: Badania marketingowe na rynku business-to-business. Oficyna Wydawnicza, Kraków, 2006, p. 19