Abstract:

Strategic marketing decisions call for up-to-date and reliable information about market developments. Information is necessary in order to be able to successfully capitalize on current developments in the environment. Information or rather knowledge is considered by more and more top managers to be the most important means of production. In the information age we now live in a need is arising for instruments that can be used to determine what information or knowledge is necessary for making decisions. This paper describes an approach with which one can systematically determine what information marketers need in order to make decisions in the fields of marketing and communications. Completely in keeping with the modern views about marketing this approach has set aside a developmental role for the consumer the user of the information. His/her wishes help determine the construction of an information plan that ensures the organization has useable information for its marketing policy.