Abstract:

The present service of market research institutes constists of providing extensive reports and charts for their clients on a periodical basis. The corresponding market research department within the client's company as well as the market researcher of the institute then have to extract all relevant data from this vast pool of information. In most cases the processing of the report data itself requires so much time that the actual market investigation and the development of future strategies are neglected. This paper presents a way how to relieve the market researcher of the time-consuming step of data analysis. In a common project between GfK AG, Nuernberg and the University of Erlangen- Nuernberg an expert system was developed in order to automatically create reports on the change in sales volume of a product category over time. This program systematically searches the data for significant developments by means of a sophisticated method of analysis. A multimedia system is employed to present the results combining verbal descriptions, (statistical) tables, and charts. Drawing from these results the inhouse market researcher is able to easily and swiftly compile "his" own expertise as the basis of a management report.