Chapter 8: Decision Support Systems and Marketing Research

This chapter is neat because it teaches about a decision support system that is an interactive, flexible, computerized information system that enables managers to obtain and manipulate information as they are making decisions. Now how cool is that! Another thing to know about this chapter is the Marketing Research Process: #1: Identify and formulate the problem/opportunity, #2: Plan the research design and gather primary data, #3: Specify the sampling procedures, #4: Collect the data, #5: Analyze the data, #6: Prepare and present the report, #7: Follow up.

For me specifically, the one thing I remember about this chapter is Secondary Data. The quality of secondary data may pose a problem and very often do not give detailed information that would enable a researcher to assess their quality or relevance. If you ever become a researcher there are a few things you'll need to be sure to address. These important questions are: Who gathered the data? Why were the data obtained? What methodology was used? How were classifications developed and defined? When was the information gathered? Now primary data is different the secondary data. Primary data is information collected for the first time, used for solving particular problems under investigation. Primary data will answer a specific research question that secondary data cannot answer. There are many options for obtaining information: surveys, mall interviews, telephone interviews, mail surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, and executive interviews.