The emphasis in marketing is on the identification and satisfaction of customer needs.To determine customer needs and to implement marketing strategies and programs aimed at satisfying those needs,marketing managers need information about customers,competitors,and other forces in the mareketplace.In recent years,many factors have increased the need for more and better information.As firms have become national and international in scope,the need for information on larger and more distant markets has increased.As consumers have become more affluent and sophisticated,marketing managers need beter information on how they will respond to products and other marketing offerings.As competition has become more intense,managers need information on the effectivemenss of their marketing tools.As the environment is changing more rapidly,marketing managers need more timely information.
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The task fo marketing research is to assess the information needs and provide management with relevant,accurate,reliable,valid,and current information.Today's competitive marketing environment,and the ever-increasing costs attributed to poor decision markeitng require that marketing research provide sound information.Sound decisons are not based on gut/内心深處的 feeling，intuition,or even pure judgement.In the absence of sound information,an incoorect management decision may result.
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Marketing managers make numerous stategic and tactical/機智靈敏的 decisions in the process of indentifying and satisfying customer needs.They make decisions about potential opportunities,target market selection,market segmentation,planning and implementing marketing programs,marketing performance,and control.These decisions are complicated by interactions between the controllable marketing variables of product,pricing,promotion,and distribution.Further complications are added by uncontrollable envrionmental factors such as general economic conditions,technology,public policies and laws,the political environment,competition,and social and cultural changes.Another factor in this mix is the complexity of the various customer groups:consumers,employees,shareholders,suppliers,and so forth.Marketing research helps the marketing managers link the marketing variables with the environment and the customer groups.It helps remove some of the uncertainty by providing relevant infromation about the marketing varialbes,environment,and consumers.In the absence of relevant infromation,consumers' response to marketing programs cann't be predicted reliably or accurately.Ongoing marketing research programs provide information on controllable and non-controllable factors and consumers;this information enhances the effectiveness of decisions made by marketing managers.
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Traditionally marketing researchers were responsible for assessing information needs and providing the relevant information but marketing decisions were made by the managers.These roles are changing,however,and marketing researchers are becoming more involved in decision XXXXXX whereas marketing managers are becoming more involved with research.This trend can be attributed to better training of marketing managers,advances in technology,and a shift in the marketing research paradigm where more and more marketing research is being undertaken on an ongoing basis rather than in response to specific marketing problems or opportunities.
