Outcomes

Chapter Five

"Continuous Learning About Markets"

I. Market Orientation and Organizational Learning

Market driven companies display superior skills in gathering, interpreting, and using information to guide their business and marketing strategies

A) Market Orientation

Market orientation is both a culture and a process committed to achieving superior customer value. The process consists of information acquisition, broad information dissemination, and shared diagnosis and coordinated action

Characteristics of the learning organization: Learning organizations are guided by a shared vision that focuses on the energies of the organization

Learning and competitive advantage: The advantage gained from learning is that the org is able to quickly and effectively respond to opportunities and threats and satisfy customers' needs with new products and improved services

B) Learning About Markets

Learning about markets requires developing processes throughout the org for obtaining, interpreting, and acting on information from sensing activities

Open minded inquiry: The search for information is of little value if management already has a view on which new information will have no influence

Developing processes for continuous learning allows firms to capture more information about customers, suppliers, and competitors

Synergistic information distribution: Expanded information connectivity promises to encourage cooperation among functions, reduce the power of information possession, and enhance organizational learning

Mutually informed interpretations: Interpretation is facilitated by the mental models of mangers, which contain decision rules for deciding how to act on the information in light of anticipated outcomes

Accessible memory: This part of the learning process emphasized the importance of keeping and gaining access to prior learning

See the PowerPoint Overview, Slide #15 to see how companies can effectively and efficiently learn about markets

C) Information, Analysis and Action

Information falls into two two categories -- information regularly supplied form internal and external sources and information obtained as needed for a particular problem

Types of information available: Marketing research studies, standardized information services, management information systems, database systems, decision support systems, customer relationship management systems, competitor intelligence systems.

II. Marketing Research Information

The starting point in obtaining marketing research information is defining the problem to be studied, indicating specific objectives, and determining what information is needed to solve the problem.

See the PowerPoint Overview, Slide #20 for Strategies for collecting information

A) Collecting Existing Information

Can be obtained from the internal information of a company

B) Standardized Information Services

Many services are available. See the bottom of page 153

C) Special Research Studies

Research studies follow a step by step process that begins with defining the problem and the objectives of the research

See the PowerPoint Overview, Slide #22 for a process for conducting 'special research'

III. Information Systems

Strategic information systems are those that change the goals, products, services, or environment of an org. These systems alter how a firm does business with competitors, suppliers, and customers

A) Management Information Systems

MISs provide raw data to decision makers

B) Database Systems

Components include relational databases, personal computers, and voice systems, etc.

C) Decision Support Systems

A DSS integrates data that are not easily found, assimilated, formatted, or manipulated with software and hardware into a decision making process that provides a marketing decision maker with assistance

See the PowerPoint Overview, Slide #23 for marketing decision support system components

IV. Marketing Intelligence Systems and Knowledge Management

A) Leveraging Customer Knowledge by:

Creating customer knowledge dialogues

Operating customer knowledge communities

Capturing customer knowledge at the point of customer contact

Having management committed to customer knowledge

Note: One must be careful about invading customer privacy

Next Steps: Please review the PowerPoint Overview slides (14-24) for this chapter. Then proceed to the Discussion Area.

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	Market orientation is both a culture and a process committed to achieving superior customer value. The process consists of information acquisition, broad information dissemination, and shared diagnosis and coordinated action
	Characteristics of the learning organization: Learning organizations are guided by a shared vision that focuses on the energies of the organization
	Learning and competitive advantage: The advantage gained from learning is that the org is able to quickly and effectively respond to opportunities and threats and satisfy customers' needs with new products and improved services

	Learning about markets requires developing processes throughout the org for obtaining, interpreting, and acting on information from sensing activities
	Open minded inquiry: The search for information is of little value if management already has a view on which new information will have no influence
	Developing processes for continuous learning allows firms to capture more information about customers, suppliers, and competitors
	Synergistic information distribution: Expanded information connectivity promises to encourage cooperation among functions, reduce the power of information possession, and enhance organizational learning
	Mutually informed interpretations: Interpretation is facilitated by the mental models of mangers, which contain decision rules for deciding how to act on the information in light of anticipated outcomes
	Accessible memory: This part of the learning process emphasized the importance of keeping and gaining access to prior learning

	Information falls into two two categories -- information regularly supplied form internal and external sources and information obtained as needed for a particular problem
	Types of information available: Marketing research studies, standardized information services, management information systems, database systems, decision support systems, customer relationship management systems, competitor intelligence systems.

	Creating customer knowledge dialogues
	Operating customer knowledge communities
	Capturing customer knowledge at the point of customer contact
	Having management committed to customer knowledge
	Note: One must be careful about invading customer privacy