Marketing research can be defined as the process of gathering recording and analyzing the data related

to certain products and services. This need for market research is derived from the concept that only by
understanding the needs and wants of the target audience and by effectively meeting them, you will be
able to achieve the organizational goals and surpass the competition in the specific market. Thus, arises
the need to collect data about the customers, competitors, and other forces in the marketplace. This data
in turn is collected and analyzed to make relevant marketing decisions, be it in relation to setting up a
business, developing a product, creating a brand or coming up with an advertising campaign. 

There are two methods of marketing research, namely primary research or secondary market research.
While primary research seeks to understand customer motivations, opinions and needs through
quantitative and qualitative field research. In contrast to that, secondary market research uses already
existing sources of information to gather the data. Read more on basic steps of marketing research process.

What is the Importance of Marketing Research?

To Make Marketing Decisions: Marketing research helps the marketers to make a decision about the
product or service. Sometimes a marketer might believe that the new product or service is useful for the
customers. However, research may show that customers do not need a product or are meeting their
needs with a certain competitor product and so on. Similarly good marketing research strives to provide
options for the successful introduction of new products and services. This makes the market entry of a
new product or service less risky.

Survive the Competition: Marketing research helps in ascertaining and understanding competitor

information such as their identity, marketing network, customer focus and scale of operations. This helps
in surviving and in certain cases, even leaving behind the competition. Moreover, with market research
you can also help understand the under-served consumer segments and consumer needs that have not
been met. 

Helps to Decide Target Markets: Research helps provide customer information in terms of their location,
age, buying behavior and gender. This helps the marketers zero in on the target markets and customers
for their products and services.

Maximize Profits: Apart from profit maximizing steps such as item optimization, customer profitability
analysis, and price elasticity, marketing research allows you to find out methods that can help you
maximize profits. For example, a product's price elasticity research can help you ascertain the impact of
an increased price on the sales and the profits of a product. This emphasis on profitability also helps the
company's focus to shift from maximizing sales to increasing the profits of a company. This helps the
company survive in the long run and maximize its profits.

Increasing the Sales: Increasing the sales of your products or services helps a company in maximizing
its profits. By understanding the customer's needs, wants and attitude towards the products and
determining whether your products fit the bill, marketers can increase their sales. This helps in not only
increasing the sales to the target customers and people already using the product but also converting the
non users into customers for the product.

Read more on:

 Why is Market Research Important

 Types of Market Research

With an understanding of the customer, competitors, products and the overall industry needs, marketing
research can equip the management with the power to make better decisions. However, the importance
of marketing research is limited to just being a marketing tool that helps you make an informed decision. So
rather than basing all your management decisions on a customer survey, use this tool as a guide and
supplement it with intelligent decision making.

Basic Steps of Marketing Research Process

Problem Identification and Definition

This is the introductory phase of the marketing research process. Basically, it involves a clear and precise
understanding of the problem at hand. It is crucial that the research team identifies, understands and
defines the problem in its entire capacity, as it affects all the subsequent activities involved in the research
process. Research teams make use of customer feedback, internal and external data reports, sales
graphs, purchasing patterns, etc. to come up with an accurate problem definition.

Designing a Proper Approach

The next step is to come up with a near-flawless approach which is aimed at solving the identified
problem. During this process, the research team has to analyze and examine a variety of factors such as
the company's targets, goals and objectives, financial resources, skill sets, manpower, industry
environment, changing business trends, etc. This phase often involves joint discussions between the
research team, industry experts and higher management.

Developing the Actual Research Design

This is the decisive step of the marketing research process. The research design is the very fulcrum of
the entire marketing research process. The solidity of the research design alone decides the success or
failure of the research program to a large extent. Naturally, this step is the most time-consuming of all the
steps and it needs careful thinking and precise execution. Different activities involved in this process
include feedback analysis, qualitative and quantitative analysis, preparing questionnaires as well as
sampling of data and processes.

Data Collection and Survey

This process mainly involves a lot of field-related work activities such as outdoor interviews, survey
campaigns and feedback sessions which are done by specially assigned data collection agents or field
agents. Almost all of those doorbell-ringing pamphlet guys or the irritating tele-callerswho telephone at the
most untimely of hours, are data collection agents who are just doing their duty, as part of their company's
marketing research process. Data collection and surveying is also implemented by means of Internet
surveys, group discussions, mail surveys, etc.

Data Structuring and Analysis

Once the data collection and surveying activities have yielded sufficient and relevant data, it is time to
systematically organize the data so that it can be interpreted and analyzed by decision makers. This
typically involves activities such as data mining, clustering of data, preparing statistical graphs and curves,
etc.

Report Generation and Presentation

All the effort that goes into designing an approach, developing a research design, collecting data and
finally analyzing the data, completely goes waste, if the findings and the results are not presented
properly. It is imperative that the whole marketing research project be properly documented and
accounted for. The entire purpose of the research campaign is to enable the higher management to make
informed decisionswhich will benefit the progress and the sales of the concerned product or service.
Hence, it is crucial that the research findings be presented accurately, clearly and relevantly. For this
purpose, the use of appropriate statistics, graphs, pie-charts, etc. is recommended.

Marketing research is a thoroughly linked process, wherein every step is individually as well as
collectively important. A slight mistake or shortcoming in any of these steps can largely affect the eventual
success or failure of the entire marketing research campaign.
Qualitative Research

The objective of qualitative research is to gather in-depth understanding of human behavior, in order to
find out the reasons which make the person behave in that particular way. This form of research relies
more on quality instead of quantity. When it come to decision making, this method focuses more on
answering questions like 'why' and 'how', instead of restricting to questions like 'what'. The number of
samples studied in this method are quite less as compared to the number of samples studied in
quantitative research. In qualitative research, the end result is more often based on the studies of a few
samples, and hypothesis is formed on the basis of these general conclusions. Read more on methods of
qualitative research.

Quantitative Research
The objective of quantitative research, on the other hand, is to develop mathematical models and
formulate theories, and employ the same to get the end results. This method focuses in the investigation
of quantitative properties and the phenomenon, as well the relationship between the two. This form of
research relies more on quantity and numbers, than on quality and details. The results in this case are
derived from numerical analysis and statistics. Unlike qualitative research, quantitative research has a
larger number of samples.

Difference Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research

In terms of comparison between qualitative and quantitative research, the major difference is the fact that
the former is restricted to a smaller group but goes into the details, while the later involves an exposure to
a large group without going into the details. Most of the other qualitative and quantitative research
differences revolve around this very fact. The number of participants in qualitative research is much less
than the number of participants in quantitative research, owing to the fact that the investigation in the
qualitative research takes much more time as it gets into the details of the matter. This also means the
time consumed in qualitative research with a fewer subjects and less analysis is much less as compared
to the time consumed for quantitative research which investigates a bigger part of the universe. The
results obtained from qualitative research have more chances of being biased as this method of research
is open to different interpretations. Some argue that qualitative research is more reliable as the
researcher puts in more efforts in compiling the data, while some argue that quantitative method is more
reliable as larger part of the universe is subjected to research.

Sr.No. Point FERA FEMA

1 Emphasis On regulation of foreign exchange On management of foreign
exchange
2 Situation Foreign exchange reserves With the improvement in
positions was not satisfactory for foreign exchange reserves such
that stringent controls were stringent controls are not
required on the use of foreign required now.
exchange
3 Permission Need to take permission of RBI in No need for seeking the
connection with remittances permission of RBI in connection
involving external trade with remittances involving
external trade except section3
relates to dealing in foreign
 exchange
4 Restrictions These restrictions on drawals of Section 5, it removes all the
foreign exchange for the purpose restrictions on drawals of
current account transactions foreign exchange for the
papoose of current account
transactions
5 Violations of Violations of FERA was treated as Violations of FEMA treated as
Rules criminal offence and burden of civil offence removes the threat
proof was on the guilty of imprisonment compared their
illegal acts by paying a fine (not
too high)
HE PUBLIC SECTOR IS THE ONE WHOSE WORKING IS IN THE HANDS OF THE GOVERNMENT.THE
GOVERNMENT HOLDS A MAJORITY STAKE IN PUBLIC SECTOR INDUSTRIES.THEIR ACTIVITIES ARE
MOSTLY INFUENCED BY THE GOVERNMENT.BUT DUE TO PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC SECTOR
INDUSTRIES,THEIR NIMBER HAS REDUCED TO A SIGNIFICANT EXTENT.INDIAN RAILWAYS,NUCLEAR
POWER INDUSTRY,ELECTRICITY BOARD,ETC.ARE STILL IN CLUDED IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR.IT MAY
BE DEFINED AS "AN ENTERPRISE WHERE THERE IS NO PRIVATE OWNERSHIP BUT ITS ACTIVITIES
ARE NOT MAINLY CONFINED TO THE MAXIMIZATION OF PROFITS AND PRIVATE INTERESTS OF THE
ENTERPRISE BUT IT IS INFLUENCED BY SOCIAL INTEREST.Examples in Mauritius are CWA,MBC,CEB 

The Public Sector, sometimes referred to as the state sector is a part of the state that deals with

either the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its

citizens, whether national, regional or local/municipal.

Examples of public sector activity range from delivering social security, administering urban

planning and organizing national defenses.

The organization of the public sector (public ownership) can take several forms, including:

 Direct administration funded through taxation; the delivering organization generally has no

specific requirement to meet commercial success criteria, and production decisions are determined

by government.

 Publicly owned corporations (in some contexts, especially manufacturing, "state-owned

enterprises"); which differ from direct administration in that they have greater commercial

freedoms and are expected to operate according to commercial criteria, and production decisions

are not generally taken by government (although goals may be set for them by government).

 Partial outsourcing (of the scale many businesses do, e.g. for IT services), is considered a

public sector model.