Forecasters, marketing researchers and marketing managers. Bridging the gaps
Gillian Rice University of Bahrain, Bahrain andEssam Mahmoud Gulf University, Bahrain
THE ROLE OF FORECASTING IN MARKETING
For many marketing managers, urgent tasks take the place of important tasks, and the future goes largely unexplored. A future orientation, however, is vital for success. For example, Japanese managers rated first, as a source of competitive advantage in the year 2000, the capacity to create fundamentally new products and businesses (Hambrick 1989). Managers need a process for finding and gaining insight into tomorrow's opportunities (Hamel and Prahalad 1994). This...