Global Marketing Research

Chapter 6: Global Marketing Research

Market research is one of the most important aspects of choosing whom to market too as well as how. What market research allows a company to do is set up a scenario where you can inquire about your target customer's wants and needs. Without market research companies would have to take a shot in the dark at trying to figure out the best way to market their product. Ways to acquire the data would be through a questionnaire, a focus group, cluster analysis, and conjoint measurements. When setting up a market research project there are six steps to follow; "define the problem, develop your research design, determine information needs, collect data, analyze and interpret the results, and report and present the findings." (textbook) If these steps are followed, then setting up a quality market research design should be relatively straightforward. As with any research project, there will be challenges to overcome. These challenges generally show up in the form of; "complexity of the research design due to environmental differences, lack and inaccuracy of secondary data, time and cost to collect primary data, coordination of multicountry research efforts, and difficulty of establishing comparability across multicountry studies." (textbook) When trying to formulate a market research problem internationally, there can be some unique problems. For example, a company's self-reference criterion, which is a person's habit of falling back on their own cultural norms and values, can lead to wrong or narrow problem definitions. In order to combat this common problem companies will try and and look at the research problem from the cultural perspective of the foreign country. An omnibus survey is a useful tool in acquiring the cultural perspective of the potential foreign country. An omnibus survey is a regularly scheduled survey that is conducted by a research agency with questions from multiple clients. They are administered to a large sample of consumers out together by the agency. In the end, an omnibus survey is a cost effective way to better understand your potential target market based on their culture. When we research the data we collect can be separated into two categories, primary and secondary. Primary data is data that is collected specifically for the purpose of the research study, while secondary data is data collected by another party. Primary data is usually the best data you can get because it is genuine and original, whereas, with secondary data you have to rely on the credibility of the source. Often times, while collecting secondary data you will encounter problems. Problems with secondary data include, accuracy of the data, age of the data, reliability over time, comparability of the data, and lumping of the data. In order to prevent these issues with secondary data, it is wise to check the credibility of the