To provide marketers and managers with the information they need to make good decisions, marketing-oriented organisations are increasingly investing in developing and maintaining effective marketing information systems (MIS). These systems consist of people, equipment and procedures committed to identifying, gathering and analysing relevant market information.

According to Malhotra (2007) the purposes of gathering market research information are to:
- identify and define marketing opportunities and problems
- generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions

In his seminal book Christensen (1997) highlighted the fact that existing providers are typically trapped into focusing on the high-value existing customers and ignore the non-customers, providing a gap that disruptive innovators can use to enter the market and erode the share of existing providers.

Marketing planning provides a framework for focussing scarce organisational resources on the right markets and activities within those markets in order to maintain organisational growth, defend markets and customer relationships against threats, minimise the long-term damage of market downturns and enter new markets or develop new products or services.

Marketing emphasises the need for an organisation to match its capabilities with customer wants and needs and then offer an exchange that simultaneously adds value for the customer and the organisation. However, what this understanding explicitly incorporated was that for an organisation to maximise its success it must: demonstrate a customer focus., define products via customer needs., integrate marketing across the organisation., capture, share and value marketing intelligence.

Marketing is a way of thinking and an approach to business that is based on the organisation's attempt to meet its customers' needs as best it can and to simultaneously create value for the organisation and for the customer.

As an activity marketing is a process that matches the wants and needs of customers with an organisation's ability to meet these wants and needs by providing appropriate goods and services. It creates value for the customers by:

• giving them suitable products (goods or services)

1. Recommendations

That the International Standards Organisation and the United Nations Statistics Division be contacted and the name 'Timor Leste' (and the abbreviation, TLS) be reverted to 'East Timor' (and the abbreviation, TMP) immediately.

That the .tp domain space be retained and commercial developments exploited.

That the Administrative Contact be redelegated from an individual to a representative of the Government ex-officio.

That the Technical Contact be retained subject to a contract between the Government of East Timor and the Technical Contact.

Study Guide

• Topic One: Managing IS To Seize New Strategic Opportunities
• Topic Two: Information Systems and Strategy
• Topic Three: Managing Using A Systems Approach
• Topic Four: Managing Information Systems Development
• Topic Five: Moving From IS Planning To IT Planning
• Topic Six: Managing Organisational Data
• Topic Seven: Managing IS Services and Business Networks
• Topic Eight: IS Project Management
• Topic Nine: Professional Ethics and Managing Technological Change