Secondary Data Research Reference: Zikmund, Chapter 7

1. King Fahd University of Petroleum & MineralsDepartment of Management and MarketingMKT 345 Marketing ResearchDr. Alhassan G. Abdul-Muhmin Secondary Data Research Reference: Zikmund, Chapter 7

2. Learning Objectives At the end of the discussion you should be able to: • Define secondary data and distinguish it from primary data • Explain the advantages and disadvantages of secondary data • List and explain the various uses of secondary data in marketing research • Identify the possible internal sources of secondary data • Identify the possible external sources of secondary data generally, and specifically in Saudi Arabia

3. Secondary Data • Data gathered and recorded by someone else prior to, and for a purpose other than the current research project. • Usually historical and requires no direct access to respondents or subjects

4. Advantages of Secondary Data • Easy availability – Secondary is easily available from a wide variety of sources • Faster to collect – Compared to primary data, secondary data can generally be collected faster  suitable for projects with time constraints • Cheaper to collect – Secondary data is generally cheaper to collect than primary data

5. Disadvantages of Secondary Data • Currency - Available information may be outdated and not suitable for our needs • Suitability of Units of Measurement - Units of measurement may not match needs of the current project  Data conversion may be necessary • Suitability of Terminology - Terminology used to describe the data may be defined differently than needed for the current project • Lack of Control – Researcher has no control over accuracy of the data  Need for cross-checks and cross verification

6. Evaluation of Secondary Data • Often secondary data needs to be evaluated to determine its suitability for the current project. • Common evaluation Criteria • Applicability of the data to objectives of the current project in terms of: • Relevance to current project’s problem definition • Applicability of time period • Applicability to relevant population • Applicability of terminology and variable classifications • Applicability of units of measurement • Accuracy of the data • Possibility of bias • Verification of accuracy of data collection • Cross-validation from original source

7. Uses of Secondary Data • In exploratory research to understand the background and nature of marketing problems, define research problem, and formulate hypotheses for testing • Fact-finding (descriptive research) • Identification of industry characteristics • Identification of consumer behavior for a product category • Trend analysis • Environmental scanning

8. Using Secondary Data in Fact-Finding

9. Using Secondary Data in Fact-Finding

10. Uses of Secondary Data • Model Building e.g. • Estimating geographic market potentials • Forecasting  (a) environmental forecasting (b) sales forecasting • Analysis of Trade Areas and Sites • Database Marketing - marketing activities that are based on maintaining customer databases with customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, past purchases, demographic information, etc

11. Forecasting - Linear Trend Extrapolation

12. Forecasting - Nonlinear Trend Extrapolation

13. Forecasting - Regression

14. Forecasting - Regression Contract Awards (t) = 0.351 Permits Issued at t-1 + 1477 Oil Price at (t-1) – 35614 • R-square = 0.85 Contract Awards (t) = 0.191 Permits Issued at (t-1) – 4347 • R-square = 0.72

15. Sources of Secondary Data • Internal and proprietary sources • External sources • Producers of secondary data • Distributors of secondary data

16. Internal Sources of Secondary Data • Accounting system, routine company documents, Salespeople’s call reports, Customer complaints, Customer service records, Warranty return cards, etc • Often used in data mining projects (the use of computers to dig through volumes of data to discover patterns). Applications include: • Market basket analysis - analyzing anonymous point-of-sale transactions to identify coinciding purchases or relationships between products purchased and other retail information. • Customer discovery - data mining to discover customer segments (e.g. loyal vs. non-loyal) • Sequence discovery - mining data to detect patterns in customer purchase sequences

17. External Sources - Producers • Publishers of books and periodicals • Government departments • Media • Trade associations • Commercial establishments  two types of which are: • Single-source data providers, and • Specialized data providers • Examples of Types of Data Provided: • Market share data • Demographic and census updates • Consumer attitude and public opinion research • Consumption and purchase behavior data • Advertising research, etc

18. External Sources - Distributors • The Internet • Libraries • Commercial vendors

19. Selected Sources of Secondary Data in Saudi Arabia • Government Ministries and Departments  e.g. the Central Department of Statistics, Ministry of Planning collects and compiles data from most government departments • Chambers of Commerce • Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) – Banking and financial statistics • Annual reports of companies listed on the stock exchange • Commercial research suppliers, e.g. Amer Research, Pan-Arab Research Center.