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New technologies, which are driving internationalization, present the designers of marketing information systems with new possible approaches and tools.

These can be used to overcome some of the challenges and obstacles described above. Many companies increasingly take advantage of the vast amount of data routinely gathered through call centers, loyalty card programs, social network archives or e-business and include them in their marketing information systems.

Using these possibilities allows companies to reduce the time they spend on collecting data across different countries and geographic distances. New instruments to obtain primary data also give rise to interesting new possibilities to undertake “greater cross-national enquiry than has been the case to date and to enhance such studies, both in terms of data collection methods and compara-tive analysis.”⁵³

Social media, for example, has changed the approach to data collection.

Interviews to gather consumer opinions can partly be replaced by routinely moni-toring how people interact with each other and what opinions they state on social media, blogs, etc. This implies that one gets “a new set of qualitative and quantita-tive information that tends to be very insightful regarding how people think about a specific subject and how they react to any kind of marketing initiative.”⁵⁴

Supporters of research based on social media put forward that it has a great impact on understanding consumer behavior and offers powerful benefits. “It is people-led, not researcher-led and thus more authentic; the volume of online chatter dwarfs what’s available through traditional research;” [it is like] “listening to online conversations that are naturally occurring—without guidance, facilitation, interrup-tion or stimulainterrup-tion.”⁵⁵

This user-generated content is the essence of the true potential the internet presents. The insight team of the Coca-Cola Company realized this potential to get a quick snapshot of the consumers’ attitudes and remarked that it is possible to Table 2.3 Possible structure for market research information

City Intra-country Country Region World

Macro-economic data Product market data Company specific data

Source: Craig, S.C. & Douglas, S.P. (2000). International Marketing Research. (2nd edition).

Chichester: Wiley, 354

53Loane et al. (2006).

54Murphy (2010).

55Siama (2011).

generate a report that normally takes weeks and high expenditure within a few minutes.⁵⁶User-generated content provides the researchers with a deep insight into the motivation behind consumers’ behavior and their attitudes. It provides an insight into their daily behavior and practices, for example, their brand relationships.

Social media also makes it possible to create new kinds of online research communities. Respondents interact not only with the researcher, but also among themselves and where possible, even the clients can become involved.⁵⁷EasyJet, for instance, created an online community, only for invited participants, for its entire business across different countries. Every week, new questions and topics are introduced and results are presented the following week. Its main aim is to gain qualitative insights, but it is also used to conduct polls and quick surveys to back up data.

An interesting application of electronic media has been reported by Hosoe.⁵⁸ Participants document their purchase behavior as it is happening by taking pictures and sending messages about their current experience. This records the consumption behavior of respondents as ‘data in progress’, as images and texts are recorded and transferred via the internet directly to a database. Researchers can then analyze this data in real-time, posing questions if necessary. Capturing data instantaneously as it occurs provides researchers with a new picture of consumption phenomena. This advantage, of course, is enhanced in a global environment in which even more diverse purchase and consumption situations are encountered and the underlying motivations and lifestyles of people might vary significantly. Having access not only to textual data but also pictures taken by respondents in their daily routine can show differences in cultures even more clearly. This allows for an analysis and presentation of results that is more thorough, providing the relevant input for more sophisticated decision-making.

The ability to take pictures and video combined with the possibility to access the internet makes mobile phones a unique data collection tool for international mar-keting research. Especially at a global level, this makes conducting research considerably simpler and more convenient for the respondents as well as the researchers. By being able to gain specific insights into the lives of participants across countries without being restricted in time and location represents a substan-tial advance in facilitating international marketing research.

To what extent new data-gathering tools and approaches will be embedded in routine global marketing information systems remains to be seen. However, it is already evident that such new tools will greatly enhance the ability to collect data across countries, increase the quality of the data, and make data available in real-time. Ultimately, the use of data routinely generated through call centers, loyalty card programs, social network archives or e-business activities and the scope for

56Siama (2011).

57Cooke and Buckley (2008).

58Hosoe (2005).

incorporating data gathered in real-time via mobile phones is only limited by our imagination.

2.5 Summary

This chapter looks at the assessment of global marketing opportunities. The term assessment is interpreted widely, in that it may concern the selection of a first export market for an international novice or the transfer of global marketing information within the knowledge management network of an established MNC. Initially, the wide variety of secondary data useful for assessing different country markets is reviewed and difficulties in comparing secondary data across countries are highlighted. As most corporations neither have the need nor the resources to gather and evaluate data from every country of the globe, a stepwise procedure for assessing and selecting potentially interesting country markets is suggested. The core element of this four-step procedure is a flexible scoring model that can be adapted to the specific requirements of a corporation and offers a means to systematize a country assessment and selection process.

Next, the discussion focuses on the collection of primary data. Different steps involved in the global marketing research process are introduced, ranging from problem definition to reporting the results. As one of the key issues in global marketing research is to ensure that data from different countries have the same meaning, the same level of accuracy and the same reliability, emphasis is placed on different aspects of equivalence in global marketing research. Ultimately, it has to be recognized that not every construct can be meaningfully compared across cultures, which leads to the debate of emic versus etic perspectives in global marketing research.

The final part of the chapter looks at the design of global marketing information systems for corporations with an established network of international operations.

Such marketing information systems form part of an overall knowledge manage-ment approach of MNCs. The importance of such systems cannot be overemphasized, as they drive an MNC’s ability to exploit locally-created knowl-edge worldwide and hence increase the competitiveness of a corporation. There appears to be no single best way of gathering and transferring marketing knowl-edge. Indeed, overloading managers with information is a potential problem.

Consequently, the information provided must be tailored to the needs of the managers receiving this information and their capabilities to manage knowledge.

The chapter closes with a brief look at new tools for global data collection.

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