FEATURES OF THE MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE COMPETITIVE EDGE OF A RETAIL FASHION STORE

Abstract

Systems that allow you to obtain and process information are considered essential to support decisions and contribute to the development of competitiveness. With respect to marketing decisions, several authors point to the existence and use of a marketing information system (MIS) as essential to the success of its purpose. However, many of them address the issue in a very theoretical framework. The aim of this paper is to improve understanding of the features of SIM and their contribution to business competitiveness. For this purpose, besides the literature review of relevant issues, a field research was conducted in a fashion retail company, through a case study based on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with decision makers - with a top management and a marketing executive. The results indicate that indeed the SIM contributes effectively to business competitiveness. Moreover, the study show that some of what is prescribed by the theory, such as unrestricted access to information, cannot be provided in practice. However, the adopted SIM in the studied organization is very similar to the theoretical model proposed by Kotler and others in their Marketing text books.