Present status of marketing research in Malaysia

The objective of this study was to determine the present state of marketing research in a developing nation, namely Malaysia, which has been exposed to marketing research for more than three decades. A survey was conducted to elicit from the current users, information pertaining to the departmental organisations, marketing research budgets, types of marketing research commissioned, and users' perception of the standard of marketing research in the country. The results have enabled a comparison between marketing research practices in the subsidiaries of multinational corporations and locally-owned companies. The findings support the view that multinationals played a crucial role in the introduction of marketing research to Malaysia. The subsidiaries of MNCs still spend a significantly larger amount on marketing research than the locally-owned companies. Overall, the Malaysian management is still learning to assimilate marketing research even though a marketing research industry has been established in the country for more than three decades. The Malaysian marketing research users are somewhat uncertain of the services they are receiving; local users perceived the Malaysian marketing research industry to be inferior in several important aspects than its counterpart in a developed nation.