Challenges faced in International Marketing Research
Key challenges in International marketing research
The challenges or problems experienced in overseas market research may be given as follows:
1. Multiplicity of markets: Problems of numerous markets are always experienced in overseas market research. Research project covers a number of foreign markets. This ultimately augments the costs and problems involved in overseas market research.
2. Problems with secondary data: Secondary data are not available in adequate volume. Further, the secondary data collected are unreliable. They suffer from lack of comparability of data.
3. Problems in collecting primary data: Buyer behavior of customers varies from country to country. As people behave differently, collecting primary data from them is comparatively difficult.
4. Problems of communication: Different countries have different languages. They create problems of translation and communication. Consumer market research is met with more communication problems than industrial market research, because of the fact that industrial market research focuses on technical factors alone. But consumer market research takes care of every pertinent detail related to market conditions.
5. The need for adaptation: The same methodology and procedures of market research do not hold good invariably in all markets. The nature, type and volume of market research have to be changed, according to the conditions prevailing in overseas market research.
6. Inadequate responses: Respondents hesitate to furnish correct information to the research. Their reluctance to furnish data and providing incorrect data occasionally make the results of the study misleading. Difficulty of the respondents to comprehend the problem prevents them from providing correct information. Useless responses are a wasteful exercise in the research process.
7. Infrastructure problems: Problems in infrastructure hamper the research process. Lack of reliable postal service, non-availability of telephones and lack of commercial infrastructure are commonly experienced, The market researcher, with creativity and a deep insight about the technicalities of the research process, will be able to solve the problems of overseas market research.
