Aim: The aim of this study has been to try to answer the question of how an IT based marketing information system support the formation of business and product related strategies and when and how such a system should be integrated in a company
Method: Analytical meta-study of published literature condensed through a SWOT analysis and combined with a qualitative evaluation of questionnaires directed to companies with experience of developing and implementing marketing information systems.
Result & Conclusion: Company size and market volatility decides the time of implementation of a marketing information system. Implementation should be initiated top-down in order to secure full organisational inertia. The approach should be holistic and tailor-made for each specific organisation. Users should fully integrated in development and implementation.
Suggestions for future research: Supplementary work could be carried out in trying to quantify how a marketing information system affect the new product time to market and the strategic mismatch to real market development, hence the efficiency of such a system. Another question of interest is the organisational inbound resistance to change, how this resistance affect the implementation of a marketing information system and how to overcome the boundaries it poses.
Contribution of the study:This study contributes with a general framework that sustains the implementation of a marketing information system. It answers the initial questions that a manager has, standing before the possible implementation of such a tool.
Source: University of Gävle
Author: Ahlstedt, Magnus