Understand how marketing research can contribute to a firm’s competitive advantage. Understand that market research includes consumer research, competitor research, and channel research and explain how consumer research uses the basic marketing research process and various methods to study consumers and their choices.
Understand that an important part of market research is to study the history of competition as well as examine current and potential competitors. Understand how to research and analyze trading systems and distribution channels.
Research, as a general concept, is the process of gathering information to learn about something that is not fully
known. For marketers, research is not only used for the purpose of learning, it is also a critical component for making good decisions.
Good research may suggest multiple options for introducing new products or entering new markets. In most cases marketing decisions prove less risky when the marketer can select from more than one option.
