Introduction, Characteristics of MKIS, Benefits

All businesses are operating under conditions of risk and uncertainty. The success or failure of any firm or company depends on many factors like economic situation, the changing tastes of customers, the extent and nature of competition and competitive activities and more. Business decisions and especially marketing decisions, are actually the decisions about the future of a company.

The management of successful companies always focuses on each of the aspects of their business in order to make achievable decision. Marketing is usually that area of a company which requires lots of attention. Company sales depend on marketing so company must use adequate solutions for the more effective promotion of their products. For this purpose companies rely on marketing information system. Marketing information system allows a company to use all relevant information for developing its marketing strategies more effectively.

Philip Kotler defines MIS system as “people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers”. In simple words we can say that Marketing information includes all those facts, estimates, guidelines, opinions, policies and other important data which is necessary for taking marketing decisions. This information may be collected from internal and external sources. This information usually collected from customers, competitors, company salesmen, suppliers, government sources, specialized agencies and others. Now a day MIS system uses modern technology and techniques for collecting, analyzing, storing and distributing information.

BENEFITS

1) Organized Data collection–  Lots of data can be collected from the market. But the main word here is “Organized”. Organizing data is very important else the data is meaningless. Thus MIS helps you to organize your database thereby improving productivity.

2) A broad perspective –  With a proper MIS in place, the complete organization can be tracked which can be used to analyse independent processes. This helps in establishing a broader perspective which helps us know which steps can be taken to facilitate improvement.

3) Storage of Important Data –  Several times in pharmaceuticals, when one drug is being produced they may need data of another drug which was produced years back. Similarly in Media, photographs are stored in archives. This storage of important data plays a crucial role in execution and thus proves again that MIS is not important only for information but also for execution.

4) Avoidance of Crisis –  The best way to analyse a stock (share market) is to see its past performance. Top websites like moneycontrol thrive on MIS. Similarly MIS helps you keep tracks of margins and profits. With an amazing information system established, you can know where your organization is moving and probably avert a crisis long before it has taken place. Ignoring hints received from MIS reports is foolhardy.

5) Co-ordination –  Consumer durables and FMCG companies have huge number of processes which needs to be co-ordinated. These companies depend completely on MIS for the proper running of the organization. There are dedicated people for marketing information systems in such organizations. This is mainly because of the speed required to access information and implement it.

7) Analysis and Planning – MIS is critical for planning. You cannot do planning without information. For planning, the first thing which is needed is the organizations capabilities, then the business environment and finally competitor analysis. In a proper MIS, all these are present by default and are continuously updated. Thus MIS is very important for planning and analysis.

8) Control – Just like MIS can help in a crisis, in normal times it provides control as you have information of the various processes going on and what is happening across the company. Thus it provides you with a sense of control.