Image credits © Prof. Mudit Katyani.

The essentials of a good Marketing Information System (MIS) is listed below:

1. MIS must be unified and centralized.

2. It must facilitate decision making.

3. It must provide quick and accurate information.

4. It must be economical.

5. It must be selective.

6. It must be future oriented.

7. It must supply information regularly.

8. It must use new techniques.

Now let's discuss and find out, “How a good MIS must be?”

1. Unified and centralized : MIS must be unified and centralized. It collects and stores

different types of market information. All of this information must be unified and

centralized. That is, all the marketing information must be brought together (unified) and

kept at one central place (centralized). So, it must be at the central-office. This will result

in easy access and quick reference. The managers will be able to find all the required

information at one place.

2. Facilitate decision making : MIS must facilitate decision making. That is, it must guide

the marketing managers in decision making. It must provide required information to the

managers to help in taking decisions. This information must be of a good quality. That is,

it must be relevant, reliable, and up-to-date. This will result in an accurate decision-

making process. So, it must not only be a data bank. It must play a positive role in the

decision-making process.

3. Quick and accurate information : MIS must provide quick and accurate information.

Today, managers have to take quick-decisions because the marketing is moving very fast.

If they don't take quickest decisions, then they will lose many marketing opportunities.

Therefore, it must provide quick information to the managers. This information must also

be accurate, regular and continuous. It must be a user-oriented one. It must collect,

classify, verify, store and supply information quickly and accurately.

4. Economical : MIS must be economical. That is, it must not be very costly. The

expenditure on it must be minimum. It must not exceed its value. It must give maximum

benefits to the company at a minimum cost. It will be economical only if it is selective. It

must be particular in collecting, analyzing, storing and supplying information. It must use

a minimum number of employees in its operation. It must be economical because it is not

directly productive. It is a service and support function.

5. Selective : MIS must be selective. That is, it must not collect all the market information.

It must only collect relevant information. It must collect information, which is very

essential and useful for decision making. If it is not selective there will be a waste of

time, energy, storage space and money.

6. Future oriented : MIS must be forward looking i.e. future-oriented. It must not be a

past-oriented one. It must give more importance to future-oriented information. It must

provide information for solving problems, which may come up in the future. The

company will be successful if their marketing managers are future-oriented. The

marketing managers can be so only if the MIS is also future oriented.

7. Supply information regularly : MIS must supply information regularly. The business

environment is changing constantly. So, the marketing managers have to take marketing

decisions continuously. Therefore, they require a regular and continuous flow of market

information. This information must be provided by MIS. So, it must supply information

regularly to the marketing managers.

1.8. Use new techniques : MIS must use new techniques for collecting, analyzing, storing

and supplying information. It must use computers and micro-films. It must use new

communication techniques. It must also make the use of the Internet and latest software

programs. These newer techniques will increase the efficiency and accuracy of MIS. MIS

will also become more economical by using new techniques