Application of MIS in Marketing

Information is the basis for every decision taken in an organization. The efficiency of management depends upon the availability of regular and relevant information. Thus it is essential that an effective and efficient reporting system be developed as part of accounting system. The main object of management information is to obtain the required information about the operating results of an organization regularly in order to use them for future planning and control.

Concept of MIS

“A system of people, equipment, procedures, documents and communications that collects, validates, operates on transformers, stores, retrieves, and present data for use in planning, budgeting, accounting, controlling and other management process. ” The Marketing Information System “A marketing information system is a continuing and interacting structure of people, equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyse, evaluate, and distribute pertinent, timely and accurate information for use by marketing decision makers to improve their marketing planning, implementation, and control”.

Sales and Marketing is a key process for the sustenance of any business as revenues are a direct outcome of it. Information Systems within the Sales and Marketing process implement technologies that allow the personnel to access crucial and updated information related to access crucial and updated information related to customer preferences and market demands to offer prompt services. Information Systems are also helpful in identifying the most effective sales strategy that can be used in any particular case based on specified criteria, such as the market segment or the product category.

Application of MIS in marketing

Major Components of a marketing information system The marketing information systems and its subsystems The above diagram illustrates the major components of an MIS, the environmental factors monitored by the system and the types of marketing decision which the MIS seeks to underpin.

Marketing models

Within the MIS there has to be the means of interpreting information in order to give direction to decision. These models may be computerized or may not. Typical tools are:

• Time series sales modes.
• Brand switching models.
•  Linear programming.
• Elasticity models (price, incomes, demand, supply, etc. ).
• Regression and correlation models.
• Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) models.
• Sensitivity analysis.
• Discounted cash flow.
•  Spreadsheet ‘what-if models.

These and similar mathematical, statistical, econometric and financial models are the analytical subsystem of the MIS .

Marketing strategies using MIS

The role of Information Systems in devising Marketing strategies has been increasing over the years. Organizations derive the following benefits from implementing Information Systems in marketing:

• Creating effective Marketing plans: Target market identification, implementation of the entire marketing campaign and finally setting up of required standards criteria and evaluating the performance of the plans generated.
• Customizing modules for specific requirements: Information can be used to manage campaigns to retain customers, vendors and optimize services regarding each contact.
• Managing critical business issues: Information Systems are effectively sed to manage critical issues, such as costs and budget analysis, media policies, establishing milestones and segment management for every campaign.
• Creating Product promotional strategies: Information Systems are used to design, analyze and implement product promotional strategies of a particular brand according to its price, quality, and other related issues.
• Conducting market analysis: Information Systems can be used to survey the potential market and this information can be analyzed to develop specific target market strategies.
• Preparing comprehensive reports: Information Systems can filter information to provide customized solutions to marketers. This information can be viewed in various ways such as summarized views, total, sub total, statistical views or graphic views.

• DIFFERENT TYPES OF REPORTS USED IN MARKETING SALES CALL REPORT – This report contains data about the potential customer. It also contains details about the types of items customer is interested in.
• QUOTATION – It is a document that gives a statement of the price, terms and the condition for a sale a supplier offers for the items.
• PURCHASE ORDER – It is a written document from the customer to the seller listing the required items and providing a description of the goods.
• INVOICE – It is a note asking for payments for goods and services that have been supplied. The invoice accompanies the delivery of ordered goods.
• SALES REPORT (product wise) – A sales report suggests the total product wise sales. From this report one can draw conclusions about the product preferences of customers in different months of the year.
• MONTHLY SALES REPORT (Sales person wise) – Sales persons are given individual sales targets.

This report shows the cumulative sales made by each salesperson for a month.

Other aspects of MIS in marketing

Managing Financial transactions Providing stock and inventory details Maintaining relevant customer information Integrating sales processes

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM IN E – COMMERCE  – Commerce is one of the fastest growing segments of the internet, which is used by businesses.

Benefits

Information Systems are being used in management of E – commerce. The Information Systems offer the following benefits:

• Integrating existing point of sales systems. Integrating with other E – Commerce driven applications to provide the analysis of market effectiveness in terms of real business.
• Managing customer information that can then be used for effective analysis to predict buying trends.
•  Provides various methods that can be used for diverting traffic onto the required websites.
•  Integrating graphs and multiple report building wizards for the creation of effective reports based on any type of information.
•  Information systems also provide various customer retention strategies according to each segment or market campaign or sales force.