My anticipated career is to serve as the product marketing manager at a major firm. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, "marketing managers develop the firm's marketing strategy in detail" (Marketing 1). This includes four primary roles related to the traditional 4 Ps of marketing (pricing, promotion, placement and product). To this end, marketing managers estimate the demand for product, identify potential markets, develop pricing strategy, and work with advertising and promotion management to promote the firm's products (Marketing 1).
There are a number of critical decisions that marketing managers must make as they get a product ready to sell, train the sales team on ways to sell it, and provide field level sales support (Daniels 1). Daniels (1) also argues that the role of the marketing manager will vary in complexity "based on the size of the organization and the diversity of the sales model (e.g. direct, indirect, online)." Because of the complexity of the role of the marketing manager, management information systems (MIS) have become crucial tools in helping marketing managers manipulate information to make better decisions throughout the product life cycle. Even in terms of ethics, marketing managers can rely on MIS tools. Rothschild (26) maintains that despite the view that marketing is "an unethical way to manage public health behaviors," new information system tools exist to help marketing managers view an issue from "multiple ethical frameworks."
There are many benefits for marketing managers who rely on MIS to manage information and data. One kind of software program is known as marketing intelligence systems, a software program that provides marketing managers with "a set of procedures and sources used by executives to obtain their everyday information about pertinent developments in the marketing environment" (Concept 1). MIS are critical for success in today's highly competiti...