response to the student answer using the ABC model.

Professor Phan you asked to describe the five-step approach to marketing research and to discuss what is involved in each step. Also, to state my perspective on which of the five steps is the most difficult and why.

The marketing research process makes up a five-step function of the scientific method. These five steps consist of defining the problem, analyzing the situation, getting problem-specific data, interpreting the data, and finally solving the problem. According to the book the first step and the most complex is defining the problem but it's necessary for the principle of the analysis to be acutely described. This step can ultimately assist the analyst to recognize the legitimate issue and what facts are essential. The next step which is analyzing the situation can aid in outlining the obstacles and determine if any extra facts are necessary. Analyzing the situation also assists educating the researcher and helping them to interpret the extent of the complications. Another part of this step includes discovering significant secondary data, which is data that has been presented before. Step 3 is getting problem-specific data which means gathering all primary data associated with the problem. There are two fundamental approaches to gathering data about customers, questioning and observing. While observing comes in multiple styles, questioning can either be qualitative or quantitative. Now we go into interpreting the data, this occurs when all the data is gathered and analyzed to determine what exactly it means. One way to interpret data is by using statistical packages, which are convenient computer programs that examine information. Unfortunately, data is not always precise, so it is substantial to classify the caliber of the data. Lastly is step 5 which is solving the problem, in this step the people who run the organization use the outcome of the data to make marketing decisions. If the data does not contribute facts to aid in this process, then the business has then burned up so much time and money. This step is the whole intention behind the entire research process.

As the textbook states step 1 is the most difficult but after reading all about the five steps and how they associate with marketing research, I feel the most difficult step would be step 3, getting problem-specific data. I believe that this step is the most difficult as it seems like it would be a lot of work to get all of that data that is geared toward the major problem and to know that the data that was collected could potentially not even assist the business in the long run just seems like it would take a toll on the business in general. With all of this being said, if you were a manager at a company how would you go about defining the problem to begin the research process and how would you gather the appropriate data to help solve it?