Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

112 Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control

At an operational level relevant marketing information is likely to be read-

ily available to support the activities that have to be undertaken. At the

marketing management level marketing information will not be so easily

available which is relevant to the supported activities. At a strategic level

marketing information to support decisions is likely to be largely unavail-

able and the reliability of that information questionable (see Figure 6.1). On

what basis can a manager judge the quality of marketing information relat-

ing to the future? To give an example market research could be undertaken

to establish consumers’ current perceptions of the future. However con-

sumers’ views of the future are based on what they currently know and

they may not be in a position to take an informed view. Indeed there is no

reason to believe that the view of the average customer is relevant. Is this

view any more realistic than the view of a single expert in the area?

Strategic questions

Management level

Operational level
Figure 6.1
Decision-making
pyramid (Source:
Adapted from
Piercy, 1997)

More and more marketing information can be produced but at a stra-

tegic level this is unlikely to be reliable.

There is no useful benefit in acquiring more and more marketing informa-

tion in order to support strategic decisions. It is typical that only 1–10 per

cent of a companies resources and effort in gathering marketing informa-

tion is useful in supporting the strategic decision making process which is

likely to generates 90–99 per cent of the value in an organisation.

(Diffenbach, 1983)