It is early in the year 2008, and a major U.S. electronics manufacturer, Trentro

Question

It is early in the year 2008, and a major U.S. electronics manufacturer, Trentron, Inc., has been studying the possibility of entering the digital camera market. In the past, it has been a successful strategy for Trentron to play the role of market follower. It has typically watched a new market closely, then chosen to enter once the market is strong for that product; it has had a chance to watch and lcarn from the experiences, successes, and failures of the early market entrants. Now that digital cameras are a strong market, Trentron is seriously studying th possibility of joining that industry Because the digital camera market represents a new consumer market for Trentron, it has been working closely with The ConRes Group, a market research firm specializing in consumer research. The project manager at ConRes who has been responsible for this project has been Tyrone Crandall. When the project was first negotiated between Trentron and ConRes, Tyrone was adamant that the research should be exploratory in nature, and should focus on the ways in which consumers make brand purchase decisions in this market. He felt strongly that this exploratory research should contain two stages In the first stage, in-depth interviews would be conducted with qualified consumers to establish the relative importance that they attached to different purchase criteria (or product attributes) and their perceptions regarding the performance of each of the four major brands on each of these purchase criteria (secondary research had already provided Tyrone with the four brands most widely considered by consumers and the five criteria upon which they were likely to rate those brands). For the implementation of this first stage of the research, Tyrone suggested that ConRes place well-trained interviewers outside major electronics stores to qualify consumers (find those consumers who were currently in the market for a digital camera) and then interview the qualified consumers. As an incentive for consumers to agree to participate in the fairly time- consuming interview, ConRes would provide participating consumers with a rebate form that, when sent back to ConRes along with a receipt proving purchase of any digital camera within e month of the interview, would entitle the consumer to receive $25 by mail. In the second stage of the research, ConRes would contact those interviewed consumers who had sent back the rebate form proving that they had purchased a digital camera, and ask them to take part in a focus group. They would be offered $100 to participate in the focus groups, which ould each include around a dozen recent digital camera purchasers as the focus group participants, would last about two hours, and would take place at various times at the ConRes facility. During these focus groups, the recent camera purchasers would discuss many topics having to do with their camera purchase, but special attention would be paid to the process they used to arrive at a purchase decision. That contract between Trentron and ConRes- detailing the two stages of the proposed exploratory research program-was successfully negotiated in fall 2007. It is now February 2008, and last week Tyrone Crandall received a very attractive employment offer from a competitor of ConRes. He opted to take the offer. Because Tyrone would be working for competing firm, when he gave notice to ConRes he was immediately escorted from the ConRes

Explanation / Answer

Decision Rule i (type of decision rule for each interviewee)

Mark G - Lexicographic rule

Patricia L - Lexicographic rule

Kelsey K - Compensatory rule

Laura M - Lexicographic rule

Ron J - Compensatory rule

Bruce - Compensatory rule

Meghan E - Lexicogrphic rule

Doris M - conjunctive Rule

Decission rule ii (weighted compensation rule)

The calculation for each of the brand is shown in the table below

Score

rating % * score

Total Scores for each brand(addition of each attribute score)

Brand A =2.45+1.25+0.1+0.1+1.6 = 5.5

Brand B = 6.5

Brand C = 5.9

Brand D = 5.75

from the above calculation the best score we got for Brand B i.e. 6.5 so we should choose that brand.

For Laura M

when she will take most impotant feature i.e. Print quality then only brand A & D will remain having score 7 then she will go for the next imporatnt feature i.e.e price where D brand having more scoe i.e. 8 so she will select brand D

For patricia

She wll also follow the same rule as Laura and select the brand D as she is folowing Lexicographic rule

For Bruce

He will go by compensatory rule as the calculations shown above he will pick Brand B as per the highest score in weighted compensation rule

For Doris

as he will go by conjunctive rule he will set the cut off criteria 4 for each attribute and as per this rule only Brand C is the option for him as all the criteria are equal or above the cut off value 4

Product attributes Importance Rating Brand A

Score

rating % * score

Brand B Score Brand C Score BrandD Score Print qulaity 35 7 0.35*7=2.45 3 1.05 4 1.4 7 2.45 Price 25 5 1.25 9 2.25 10 2.5 8 2 Zoom Capacity 10 1 0.1 9 0.9 6 0.6 5 0.5 Battery life 10 1 0.1 9 0.9 6 0.6 4 0.4 Weight 20 8 1.6 7 1.4 4 0.8 2 0.4

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