MARKET RESEARCH
"A Catalyst in Business "
The notion of Marketing Research being a catalyst in Business might appear absurd and unfounded because people will not understand why Research should be a catalyst in business or give impetus to business.
Most professionals and academicians are more familiar and give credence to business terminologies such as :
. Advertising
. Sponsorship
. Sales Promotion
. Integrated Marketing Communication
. Branding, etc
which might arguably be considered as catalysts or propellers in business.
The thought-provoking question here is on what bases do organizations apply the aforementioned business concepts to their functions ? And the answer is simply, information from Marketing Research.
Strategy formulation should be based on information from marketing research internationally, nationally and at organizational level.
Based on the forenamed issues, it can be argued that research, indeed, is a fundamental problem facing organizations and government agencies; this fundamental problem of research facing most institutions may not be attributed to just lack of resources but the lack of appreciation for it.
Most business establishments have ignored the impact that information can have on decision making through marketing research. Some organizations tend to meet the needs of consumers through assumptions and opinions from well-wishers. This unpopular conventional ideological principle has undermined the progress and potential of some well-known institutions.
Most of the big multinational companies like Unilever, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Mercedes Benz, Toyota and Sony spend huge resources on research in the areas of pricing, product development & branding, distribution, promotion, competition, customer service, corporate responsibility & identity, etc.
Part of their successes can be attributed to years of extensive research.
According to Standard & Poor's Compustat in Englewood Co., the top 500 companies in the world spent between $1billion and $50billion in 1997 in area of research in different sectors including information & electronics, medical substances & devices, motor vehicles & surface transport equipment and chemicals.
During that same year, net sales of the top 500 companies were between $70billion and $800billion.
At national and governmental level, tourism can be one of the focal points where Marketing Research can be explored to generate substantial foreign exchange and sustainable customer inflow. If any country wants to make a substantial amount of money from tourism, it has to look for useful information to make the right kind of decisions.
Just like any competitive market, tourists would be looking for certain fundamental " ingredients " before deciding to patronize a particular tourist destination. It must be realized that countries with tourist attractions would be competing for the limited income of the tourists all around the world. The tourists have to take decisions based on the ability of tourist destinations to meet their expectations or satisfy their physical and emotional needs.
The fact that a country has magnanimous, natural settings does not guarantee the inflow of tourists. The uniqueness and the cultural setting of the people, good hotels & resorts, well-constructed roads & highways and the like can add " flavour " to the already existing natural monuments. But the big question here is, what are the fundamental and added on values that attract tourists? And the second question is how do we communicate these values to these different categories of tourists? My answer is, through Marketing Research.
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| Victoria Falls - Zimbabwe |
Ghana can utilize secondary data (already existing data) to have initial understanding of the elements that attract tourists to competitive destinations in Africa and across the world; it would improve our capability to position Ghana as one of the best tourist destinations; not only in Africa but the whole world. Some countries have key competitive strengths which can be difficult to erase, example, the uniqueness of Victoria Falls. The uniqueness of tourist destinations can become the epitome of business success but it must be supplemented with appropriate Market Research.
Market Research at governmental level is not limited to tourism alone but must be linked with Science for Ghana and Africa to generate their own technologies to compete on the world stage. No single country has monopoly over technology. Technology is generated from extensive research in scientific discoveries. Governments in Ghana and Africa as a whole must allocate huge budgets to Scientific Research.
Since Scientific Research does not generate immediate results, it might be considered as waste of time and resources or a non-prioritized area.
If you allow other countries to think for you, then you will have to pay for their technologies which is four or five times the cost of the research.
According to Commitment to Development Index (CDI), publishsed annually by the Centre for Global Development, the top 8 spenders in Research and Development (R&D) in terms of percentages on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are as follows :
Israel (4.3%) ; Sweden (3.73%) ; Finland (3.45%) ; Japan (3.39%) : South Korea (13.23%) ; Switzerland (2.9%) ; Iceland (2.78%) ; and United States of America (2.62%), none from Africa.
This is a worrying feature for Africa since it buttresses the point of the continent's lack of deep-centred appreciation towards research.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering, estimated that overall spending in R & D conducted in the United States alone was $398billion in 2008, up from $373billion in 2007. The business sector alone performed an estimated $289 billion in R & D in 2008.
It was recently announced on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that China's resurgence as an economic powerhouse is partly the result of increasing research in different areas relative to America.
Research (Market Research) in the short run might be considered as an expensive adventure but in the long run it yields proficient results.
Credit : Alfred Koomson
alfredk001@yahoo.com
