Below are this chapter's featured key terms. The textbook's full glossary is also available for online searching.
 

buildup forecast	Summing the sales forecasts of each of the components to arrive at the total forecast. (See page(s) See page 229 in your textbook.)
customs	Norms and expectations about the way people do things in a specific country. p.181data mining The extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases. (See page(s) See page 227 in your textbook.)
depth interview	A detailed, individual interview with a person relevant to the research project. (See page(s) See page 214 in your textbook.)
direct forecast	Estimating the value to be forecast without any intervening steps. (See page(s) See page 230 in your textbook.)
ethnographic research	Observational approach to discover subtle emotional reactions as consumers encounter products in their "natural use environment." (See page(s) See page 222 in your textbook.)
experiment	Obtaining data by manipulating factors under tightly controlled conditions to test cause and effect. (See page(s) See page 219 in your textbook.)
focus group	An informal session of 6 to 10 past, present, or prospective customers in which a discussion leader, or moderator, asks their opinions about the firm's and its competitors' products. (See page(s) See page 213 in your textbook.)
information technology	Designing and managing computer and communication networks to provide a system to satisfy an organization's needs for data storage, processing, and access. (See page(s) See page 226 in your textbook.)
jury of executive opinion forecast	Asking knowledgeable executives inside the firm about likely sales during a coming period. (See page(s) See page 231 in your textbook.)
lost-horse forecast	Starting with the last known value of the item being forecast, listing the factors that could affect the forecast, assessing whether they have a positive or negative impact, and making the final forecast. (See page(s) See page 230 in your textbook.)
market potential	Maximum total sales of a product by all firms to a segment during a specified time period under specified environmental conditions and marketing efforts of the firms (also called industry potential). (See page(s) See page 228 in your textbook.)
marketing research	The process of defining a marketing problem and opportunity, systematically collecting and analyzing information, and recommending actions to improve an organization's marketing activities. (See page(s) See page 207 in your textbook.)
nonprobability sampling	Using arbitrary judgments to select the sample so that the chance of selecting a particular element may be unknown or zero. (See page(s) See page 224 in your textbook.)
observation	Watching, either mechanically or in person, how people behave. (See page(s) See page 221 in your textbook.)
primary data	Facts and figures that are newly collected for the project. (See page(s) See page 212 in your textbook.)
probability sampling	Using precise rules to select the sample such that each element of the population has a specific known chance of being selected. (See page(s) See page 224 in your textbook.)
sales forecast	The maximum total sales of a product that a firm expects to sell during a specified time period under specified environmental conditions and its own marketing efforts (also called company forecast). (See page(s) See page 228 in your textbook.)
salesforce survey forecast	Asking the firm's salespeople to estimate sales during a coming period. (See page(s) See page 231 in your textbook.)
sampling	The process of selecting subsets from a population. (See page(s) See page 223 in your textbook.)
secondary data	Facts and figures that have already been recorded before the project at hand. (See page(s) See page 212 in your textbook.)
survey	A research technique used to generate data by asking people questions and recording their responses on a questionnaire. (See page(s) See page 216 in your textbook.)
survey of buyers' intentions forecast	Asking prospective customers whether they are likely to buy the product during some future time period. (See page(s) See page 231 in your textbook.)
survey of experts forecast	Asking experts on a topic to make a judgment about some future event. (See page(s) See page 231 in your textbook.)
top-down forecast	Subdividing an aggregate forecast into its principal components. (See page(s) See page 229 in your textbook.)
trend extrapolation	Extending a pattern observed in past data into the future. (See page(s) See page 231 in your textbook.)