Marketing information system and risk reduction in managing a company on foreign markets

Motivation: The need to develop marketing information systems results from the generally accepted need act according to marketing concept. When defined as a specific type of management information, marketing information refers to any kind of data that can be used in the process of marketing management in order to attenuate the uncertainty of decisions undertaken in the context of strategic marketing and operational marketing. The dynamic character of market processes and phenomena causes that decision-making always entails a certain dose of risk. Risk reduction is possible, for instance, by means of deploying relevant marketing information. One may, therefore, say that a role of information in a decision-making process could be perceived in terms of both uncertainty reduction and rendering undertaken decisions a privilege of correctness understood a priori. Aim: Any expansion beyond the scope of domestic market and searching for competitive advantages in the diversified international business environments are necessitated by taking decisions which involve greater risk than routine decisions based on experiences derived from the corporation’s domestic market. Likewise, decision-making process require a more profound informational support when they refer to international markets. By placing an emphasis on the sub-system of marketing research undertaken in a multicultural business environment, this paper aims to categorize and provide an in-depth insight into theoretical bases of marketing information systems with regard to companies functioning on foreign markets. The text elaborates upon the role of information in marketing management as well as upon selected approaches to the formation of marketing information systems. Moreover, the significance of international marketing research and its role in the process of corporate internationalization are explained. Likewise, basic forms of organization with regard to international marketing research are also characterized and explained from a perspective of involved spatial variables. Results: Globalization processes and the increase in the internationalization of enterprises pave the way for the development of marketing information systems which are utilized by contemporary business ventures seeking to internationalize their operations. Hence, one may postulate that the development of conceptualizations referring to international and global marketing is a motivating factor leading to the increase in the significance of well-constructed systems of marketing information with a special emphasis placed on the subsystem of marketing research. At this point, one has to bear in mind the international marketing research cannot be treated simply as an extension of domestic studies. When investigating international business environment, one is in a position to take a plethora of specific methodological problems into account at all stages of research procedures. The fundamental problem of international marketing research, which may be conceived as a context for further research, is equivalence of studies on diverse foreign markets and diverse cultures.