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Top1. Introduction
Marketers require insights about their customers and the marketplace (Latinovic & Chatterjee, 2019). Insights cannot be gained without proper information (Briele, Lindemann, Kiesel, & Schmitt, 2021). Companies collect, develop, and manage information about important marketplace elements like customers, competitors, products, and marketing programs (Mandal, 2021). Companies should have the capabilities to convert the information into fresh customer insights (Bughin, Lund, & Manyika, 2015). The insights help companies to understand their customers, engage them in a better way, and to deliver greater value to them (Da Silva, 2021). Companies will be able to offer excellent products and marketing programs when they collect relevant customer information and analyze the information properly (Huang, Niu, & Pan, 2021). Again, companies will not be able to provide their customers with better services unless they have updated and relevant information about competitors, resellers, and other actors and marketplace forces (Peltier, Zahay, & Lehmann, 2013). Powerful customer and market insights can be generated only after collection of proper marketing information (Sheth, 2017). The information should be relevant and updated. The information is processed to generate marketing intelligence. Relevant and updated marketing information and marketing intelligence help companies in generating appropriate customer and market insights (Fan, Lau, & Zhao, 2015). Here lies the importance of collecting marketing information and generating marketing intelligence.
The importance of collecting relevant marketing information, analyzing the information, and generating marketing intelligence and relevant customer insights for organizations cannot be overemphasized (Mandal, 2018). A thorough analysis of the connections among marketing information, marketing intelligence, and customer insights is required (Ndlovu & Ndlovu, 2021). However, studies addressing these connections are limited. The study aims to address this research gap.
The objective of the study is to understand the connections and inter-connections among collection of marketing information, generation of marketing intelligence, and identification of relevant customer insights for organizations. The study focuses on the various aspects of marketing information, marketing intelligence, and their roles in gaining customer insights.
The methodology adopted is a conceptual analysis of the literature on marketing information, marketing intelligence, and customer insights. The research design is based on conceptual analysis. The connections and inter-connections among these aspects are explained based on conceptual analysis. Primary data is not collected and empirical analysis is not done.
The contributions and the novelty of the study lie in the fact that a thorough conceptual analysis of the connections and inter-connections among marketing information, marketing intelligence, and generation of customer insights for organizations is done. Generation of relevant customer insights is imperative for organizations. The study will help both academicians and practitioners to appreciate the importance of collection of relevant marketing information and marketing intelligence in the generation of relevant customer insights for organizations. Marketing information systems and internal databases help in the generation of customer insights. Managers will be able to appreciate the roles of marketing information systems and internal databases in the generation of customer insights. The study will sensitize companies and managers to be aware of the ethical issues in the generation of competitive marketing intelligence. All these aspects are focused in the study.
The study is structured as follows.