To establish and improve the marketing information system, the following four subsystems must be established:
(1) Internal reporting system. The main task of the internal reporting system is to provide managers with information about sales, cost, inventory, cash flow, accounts receivable and other information reflecting the current operating conditions of enterprises. Marketing managers must classify products, regions and sales personnel, and deeply analyze the information of current and past sales costs.
(2) Marketing information system. Marketing information system refers to various sources and procedures used by marketing managers to understand the development trend of external environment. With the help of this system, information about the new development of the environment is transmitted to the relevant managers. The difference between it and the internal reporting system is that the former mainly provides information on the internal operating results of enterprises, which is "result data", while the latter mainly provides information on environmental changes, which is "process data".
(3) Market research system. The main task of market research system is to collect, evaluate and transmit all kinds of information necessary for managers to make decisions. Enterprise managers often require market research departments to engage in market research, consumer preference testing, sales research, advertising evaluation and so on. The work of the research department mainly focuses on solving specific problems, that is, formally collecting original data for a specific problem, conducting analysis and research, and writing reports for managers' reference.
(4) Marketing analysis system. The main task of marketing analysis system is to help marketing managers analyze complex marketing problems by analyzing various models, so as to improve their operations or obtain the best economic benefits. It includes some advanced statistical programs and models. With these programs and models, more accurate survey results can be mined from the information.
A perfect marketing analysis system usually consists of three parts: database, statistical database and model base.