UPfront Enduring Enting

“… today, more than ever before good management demands and must have facts – facts clearly stated, facts presented in precise terms, facts upon which to base policies and make judgements. The guesswork is going out of business, and so is the guesser!
“That this demand for positive workable information calls for efficient fact-finding is obvious. Fact-finding, as is well known, may take many forms, not all of which are completely scientific in approach. Depending entirely on circumstance, such methods may or may not be adequate; but modern business is presenting an ever-increasing number of situations which call for fact-finding approach similar in nature to the painstaking methods which have developed so rapidly in the fields of technology and industrial science. The application of such methods to the problems of marketing and merchandising is what is now loosely termed Market Research.”
This extract from column written by New Zealand’s “Mr Market Research”, LM (Laurie) Enting, appeared in the first issue of Management magazine published at the beginning of 1955 – almost 50 years ago. Laurie Enting, last year inducted into Marketing Magazine’s Marketing Hall of Fame for his contributions to marketing and market research in New Zealand, is spritely 90-something and still living in Wellington.
Much of what he wrote in his column 50 years ago is still relevant and sound advice today. Just shows, well-considered and soundly based management ideas endure.