| Written by: Dr Leow Chee Seng | Date Added: 2009-12-29 15:24:56 | |
The needs of Market Research in Malaysia |
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Market research is an essential part of any business that wants to offer products or services that are focussed and well targeted. It is viewing the entire business from the customer's viewpoint which takes into account every aspect of the marketing mix from product to price, distribution channels and marketing communications. All these factors affect the customer's response to a product or service. Business decisions that are based on good intelligence and good market research can minimise risk and pay dividends by making market research part and parcel of the business process. In general, businesses that invest time in market research increase their chances of succeeding in international markets. |
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Market research is an essential part of any business that wants to offer products or services that are focussed and well targeted. It is viewing the entire business from the customer's viewpoint which takes into account every aspect of the marketing mix from product to price, distribution channels and marketing communications. All these factors affect the customer's response to a product or service. Business decisions that are based on good intelligence and good market research can minimise risk and pay dividends by making market research part and parcel of the business process. In general, businesses that invest time in market research increase their chances of succeeding in international markets.
“Why do I need to invest in market research? I am just running a small enterprise!” This statement is extremely common when a consultant is trying to approach SMIs or SMEs to conduct a market research to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness when running the business. Unfortunately, the awareness on the importance of market research is limited among Malaysians. Hence, effort and resources are wasted on trials and errors stage when running business. (Hair et. al., 2003). Your company may begin exporting without any market research if it receives unsolicited orders from abroad. However, you will find even more promising markets by conducting a systematic research.
Market research helps better communicate and understanding of success in business. I have conducted a research to compare customer satisfaction among patients from private and public hospitals. From the research, we have identified elements that could boost up their customer satisfaction to gear up key performance index (KPI) of the organisation. Consequently, current customers’ experiences are valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations, they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By asking the customer, you are not only showing them that you care but you also take the guess work out of customer services. Indirectly, the organisation has implemented branding strategy to increase the market share.
Consumer behaviour plays a vital role if you are planning to operate a new service. We need to know the preconceived attitudes that people have and then market research can help, not only in evaluating the potential for a new idea, but also by identifying the areas where a marketing research needs to honed. Market research helps you identify opportunities. By understanding the consumer behaviour, we could deliver convincing sales presentations, shorten sales cycle, create effective marketing strategies, boost your revenue and profits, radically improve your ability to influence others and close more deals. Hence, understanding consumer through market research stimulates organisation to create a “wow” marketing plan.
Nevertheless, market research creates benchmarks and helps an organisation measures their progress and analyse the corporate effectiveness through corporate research. Several researches are proposed in the organisation which includes assessing the image of the company (brand audit research). In advertising research, readership feedbacks and advertising recall are common to assess the effectiveness of advertisements. Early research may highlight glaring holes in your service or short falls in your product, regular market research will show if improvements are being made and, if positive, will help motivate a team. Organisation can conduct sales analysis to determine sales trend and suitable strategies are applied and planned to ensure the optimum growth of the organisation through assessing market potential, estimation of demand for a product, market share estimation, study seasonal variation for a product, market segmentation studies, estimate size of the market and need analysis to find out where the product fits in. Through effective marketing research, time, effort and resources can be utilized at optimum state to benefit the organisation.
To sum up, market research consists of a plan that charts how relevant data is to be collected and analyzed so that the results are useful and relevant for making marketing decisions. Once the research and the related analysis are completed, the results are communicated to management. This provides management with in-depth information regarding crucial factors that have an impact on the targeted market and existing marketing mix. Market research allows management to make the changes necessary for better results through adopting a proactive approach. Since marketing research is crucial, SMIs and SMEs should include market research in their business plans.
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