Abstract:

The central theme of this paper is that strategic planning, for both the short and long term, is going to be increasingly important throughout the 1980's and that for effective planning to be carried out information is the key resource. Market research can, and must, be one of the most important vehicles for providing this information. To illustrate in a practical way the role research can play, examples are drawn from the airline industry. These examples cover both shorter term decisions relating to communications and longer term capital expenditures involving product offerings, fare structures and aircraft purchase. This paper, which is written with a researcher's viewpoint, argues that for research to contribute on more than the micro level, for it to contribute to longer term planning as well as the shorter term, it is necessary for researchers and management alike to find new ways of using research in concert with the managerial models already in situ. The problem is largely a conceptual one rather than a practical one; the techniques necessary for research to operate in a predictive mode, as well as a descriptive and explanatory mode, exist already, but in too many cases these techniques are applied only in a limited manner.