Abstract:

Overseas market research gradually came into being as a result of the need felt by export companies to obtain the kind of accurate information about their existing markets that was vital if they were to formulate any serious marketing policy. The problem which arises is that of the specificity of the methodology to be applied in the case of overseas market research. Experience gained from various types of studies carried out in different markets and countries has shown that where shortcomings or mistakes occur in the implementation of the work and in the exploitation of the results they are probably caused not so much by the limitations of the methodology used as by a lack of imagination, a kind of explorative sterility that prevents such methods from being successfully applied to previously under-explored fields or subjects.