Marketing Service Provider or Suppliers

Marketing Research is an essential tool in the decision making process of any organization, depending on the following factors a firm can opt for various alternatives to receive Marketing Research

Company's Size of operation.

Company's Product Ranges or Diversification

Company's Business Environment.

Company's Specific Problems

Industry of the company.

Nature of product and service offering.

Based on the above factors a company can choose any of the following service provider.

Internal Marketing Research Supplier:-

• Company can have its own internal Marketing Research Department.
• Marketing Research Department will have its own systems of Equipments. Persons and Technology, which will be used to cater the Marketing Research Requiremetns of the company.
• Internal Marketing Research department can be centralized or decentralized depending on its operations.
• If the Marketing Research Department works from Head Quarters of the company it is centralized, when the Marketing Research Department is at SBU level or Regional level or Divisional level then it is example of decentralized MR department.
• Having internal MR department helps the company in achieving competitive edge in the market as any data or information collected is exclusive to the use of internal use only.

External Marketing Research Supplier

• Organization can also hire external marketing research firms for its marketing research requirements.
• Such external marketing research companies solely undertake Marketing Research Activities hence provide Expertise in the marketing research activities.
• External Marketing Research firms provide better MR services at lower costs and in less time.
• These external Marketing Research companies have more input data and more refined information which is perhaps unavailable to the company.
• External Marketing Research Agencies are expert in all the activities of marketing research and sometimes they provide better interpretations and recommendations as compared to internal suppliers.
• Facilities provided by the External Marketing Research Agencies doesn't contribute to the competitive edge of the company as such Marketing Research services are free for use to any conpany.
• Services provided by External Marketing Research Agencies are compartively more economical as compared to internal marketing research supplier.

Syndicated Services :

• Marketing Research Agencies who operate independently, collect information,specific and relevant for a particular industry and provide it to clients who had subscribed to such services.
• Such services include Trend Analysis and Projections for the overall industry.
• The information is exclusive to the subscriber only.
• Provide Generic and unbiased information as the data is collected not for a specific company.

Standardized Services:

• Marketing Research Agencies which follow a standardized methods of Research process for specific problems or requirement of Marketing Research it is called standardized marketing research services.
• Such services can provide information to specific marketing problems like (effectiveness of advertising and sales promotion activities,brand awareness of different products,etc.)
• The major advantages of standardized services is that as the information is done in standardized manner the results can be compared, even among competitors and hence provide analytical insight in to the problems.
• Consume less time but at the same time not customized.

Customized Services:-

• Certain marketing research agencies provide a variety of MR services which can be planned and modified according to the customer's specific requirements.
• Such customized services only address specific problems or situation which are of great interest to the company.
• Such services are expensive but the results obtained are more reliable and specific to the user.

Internet Marketing Research Agencies:-

Internet marketing research agencies are virtual organization, which provide MR facilities through net.

They collect data through the websites or online questionnaire from the sample.

Limited Service Provider:-

• These agencies expertise in one or more steps of marketing research process.
• Such agencies can be utilized for steps like collection of data through surveys, data entry operations in softwares, tabulation of data, analysis of collected data etc.
• These limited service provider helps in reducing time of total Marketing research activity.
• Such agencies have their own workforce which they utilize for such activities for different clients hence they can complete these marketing research steps efficiently and in a economic manner.