Abstract:

Marketing and marketing research are being marginalized in most organizations. This marginalization comes from the organization's focus on supply-chain management and the organizational structures employed. Further, market research managers contribute to the marginalization through their focus on 'research tools' rather than research strategy and information development. The authors argue that market and marketing research must move to a higher level in the organization and that can be done only by developing processes, not more tools. A seven-step integrated market and marketing research system is introduced and explained as one solution to the marginalization issue.