RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MARKETING RESEARCH ACTIVITY IN ROMANIAN MICROCREDIT ORGANIZATIONS

As they mature, microcredit organizations in Romania are becoming aware of the importance of marketing in their current activities. Although marketing interventions should be considered important on all types of markets, the reality is that micro-credit companies in Romania have a limited institutional capacity to develop and implement marketing programs. This implies that marketing efforts should be focused and marketing needs should be prioritized, according to the appropriate level of market development (developing markets, growth markets and mature markets). The paper presents the results of an exploratory marketing research study regarding the marketing activity performed by microfinance institutions in Romania. The purpose of the research was to identify courses of action to institutionalize marketing research in the current activity of the subjects analyzed. It has been our intention to give a very practical dimension to the recommendations regarding the marketing information useful for microcredit organizations and categories of marketing research needing to be conducted regularly, making them applicable within the specific Romanian environment. Given the fact that on a national level scientific concerns about microfinance in Romania, in general or about marketing in the field of microfinance in particular are almost nonexistent, this thesis can be regarded as an innovation. This conclusion comes both from the investigation of existing literature and from the author's interviews with managers of microfinance institutions who have argued that this was the first time when Romanian academic institutions got interested in this sector. Potential beneficiaries of the results of this study are: managers of microcredit organizations interested in the development and sustainability of the institutions they manage; various national and international organizations interested in designing technical assistance programs in the areas identified as being necessary; academic institutions, interested in improving the offer of educational services in the field of microfinance; researchers, interested in developing practical tools for the development of the microfinance sector, in general; the general public, who comes in contact with an area less or not at all known until now.