The logic of marketing which launched the decision makers to be conscious of the entire environment of their areas of operation., is now encouraging companies to surpass the boundaries of these areas and become international,- inter-sectorial, etc. To what extent does this development demand that the research worker prepare new research structures and tools ? And of what type ? These are the main questions which are worth contemplating, keeping in mind that developments in a series of markets make it more difficult than before for managements to interpret: and control what is actually happening in these new circumstances. The researcher is asked to play an active role by immediately adapting his own methodological and organisational tools to the subjects under review and to the operational demands of who is responsible for choosing the subject of the research. The international dimension is identified the moment the company starts to operate on a comprehensive basis in a particular segment of demand, so that all the markets are included in this single segment. To say that the various national markets can be considered of the same standard as those of regional areas in a given country is certainly a simplified statement, even although the regional differences are in many cases equivalent to national ones.
The aim of this paper is to convey to all marketing research experts present at the current ESOMAR Seminar some idea of the major changes taking place in Europe at this moment with respect to methods and techniques of market research on industrial products. Looking back over the past ten years of our activity in this field we believe that these changes are largely due to new requirements and increased possibilities in the field of data collection and processing. We shall expound this point of view in three points which, we hope, will provide a starting point for discussion and an opportunity of confrontation between various domains of experience. The three parts of our paper are entitled: - Limitations of traditional research; - Data collection at the industrial level; - Data and informatics.