Importance of Marketing Research and Competitive Intelligence

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Evaluation the Importance of Market Research to develop the Marketing Strategy of Kudler Fine Foods

Introduction

Kudler Fine Foods operates specialty food stores in the California. It has three locations at La Jolla, Del Mar and Encinitas (Kudler Fine Foods, 2011). The objective of the company is to provide high quality products at competitive prices and attracting customers for the better quality products. In this, importance of marketing research in the development of marketing strategy and tactics of Kudler Fine Foods will be discussed and areas in which additional market research is needed for the company will be identified. Additionally, there will be a discussion about the importance of competitive intelligence for developing marketing strategies.

Importance of Marketing Research

Marketing research is very important aspect to the strategy of expansion and diversification of any organization. Marketing research is the process of collecting, recording and analyzing data and information about customers and competitors (Zikmund & Babin, 2009). This information is useful to create long term business plan, introduce new products or services and develop new market. It is an important tool for managers in the decision making process (Crouch & Housden, 2003). It provides information about customer, market and competitor that are used to identify market opportunities and threats, create, modify and evaluate marketing decisions and monitor performance of the marketing strategy and actions.

There are various types of market research that help to develop business plan and marketing strategy of Kudler Fine Foods. These researches are business trend research, market share and potential research, brand image research and market segmentation and marketing mix research (Birn, 2002). Business trend research provides the information of growth rates in the food industry. With the help of this, Kudler Fine Food Company can develop and modify its marketing strategy and tactics.

Market share research gives the information about the existing players in the industry that means its competitors. This information is used to make competitive strategy regarding price, promotion and product quality (Birn, 2002). Company wants to expand its business and knowledge about competitors that is important to determine its position in comparison with competitors. Using this research information, Kudler Fine Foods is able to know the stronger areas than its competitors and then build up its strengths to increase position over the rivals (Kudler Fine Foods, 2011). Market research helps to identify the weak areas of company and develop ways to defeat them.

Apart from this, market potential research provides the information of possible sales of a commodity and a service for the entire industry during the fixed time period (Xu, 2005). From this information; company is able to make its ...