Marketing Information System for Industrial Products

Use of an information system in Business organizations has become a necessity to survive for a long term in the business. As we know today an organization is making huge profits due to introduction of new products or product lines, but proper investment in R & D, Quality Systems and an organization wide Information system is must for a firm for long term survival. Along with other information system implementation of Marketing Information System has become quite common in case of Consumer Product Manufacturers. But in case or Industrial Products, Marketing Information System is not yet formalized or not considered important by many business firms. Due to stiff competition, dynamic marketing environment in Industrial Marketing, a business organization cannot afford to neglect the importance of Marketing Information System. This work is an effort to show the advantages of developing a Marketing Information System in the organizations manufacturing & selling Industrial Products/Services.


INTRODUCTION
Implementation of proper information system across the organizations is inevitable for any Business Enterprise. As we see this in each & every part of the business. Now a day's usage of single organization wide Management Information System is not enough for proper flow & availability of information. That is why we have lots of module in each of the ERP systems implemented in any organization viz., FICO, SALES, MATERIALS, and OPERATIONS etc. So, now it has become necessary for organizations to have a proper "Marketing Information System" to equip the Sales & Marketing people with right information (needless to say) at right time. There was a lot of work has been done MKIS for consumer products, this paper is an effort towards making organizations aware with benefits of using an MKIS for Industrial Marketing.

INFORMATION SYSTEM
Data: Raw facts such as an employee's name and number of hours worked in a week, inventory part numbers or sales orders. Information: A collection of facts organized in such a way that they have additional value beyond the value of the facts themselves. Information Systems: An information system (IS) is typically considered to be a set of interrelated elements or components that collect (input), manipulate (processes), and disseminate (output) data and information and provide a feedback mechanism to meet an objective. An Information System is a systematic combination of people, hardware, software, communication networks and the data resources that collects analyses and distributes information in an organization. Information Systems are unavoidable to the business, industry, academic and any other type of organization to meet the future challenges A Management Information System is the plan and design of an Information System to provide managers with information.

MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM (MKIS)
Marketing Information System is a management system that works in conjunction with other functional information systems to support the firm's management in solving problems that relate to marketing the firm's products.
Marketing information system (MIS) is a set of procedures and methods for the regular, planned collection, analysis and presentation of information for use in marketing decisions. It consists of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers. Its function is to Assess, Develop and Distribute Information.

The Structure & Functions of a Marketing Information System
Marketing information System

Traditional Process of Handling the Customer Inquiry
5. Production capacity of the Unit. 6. Current capacity utilization or spare capacities. 7. Cost Components of the products. If the above information is made available to the Sales/Marketing people, it will enable them to quickly react to each customer inquiry and finalize the deals across the table. In Industrial markets most of the customers need same products, but with slight changes in their specifications, which are being manufactured in the same unit and on the same manufacturing facility (e.g. machines, plants etc.) So, based on above discussion we can see the sources of information to MIS for Industrial products: 1. Production Department: Information about the production capacity of the unit current and near future utilization/load of the plant. Current & next 3-6 months Production Schedules. This will enable Sales people to assess the possibility of manufacturing products for immediate orders. Sales people can also asses time required to manufacture and can promise exact supply details to Customers. positively, Customer starts relying on the same source and this way an organization automatically eliminates its competitors at least for particular customer(s). 5. Since Marketing people are equipped with all needed information it enables organization to cash on short term high profit opportunities, which may have been lost due to the long processing time in traditional way of handling customer inquiries.

It supports in formulation of Marketing
Strategies of the organizations. 7. Finally, I want to request all my readers to provide the inputs/suggestions/correction, they feel necessary to refine my work. This paper has been produced based on my own eight years experience in the field of marketing of industrial products and last 4 years experience in academic field.