Question 6: On Attribute Importance Given
the information shown below (from a screen shot of Market Study 15 at
decision period 0, or round 0, which your team will have access to in
making your Period 1 decisions), what are the top 3 most important
attributes as demanded by market segments Alpha and Epsilon,
respectively? How would you use this information in various pertinent
aspects of strategic marketing decision-making? (10 points) Your Answer: The top 3 attributes for Alpha: The top 3 attributes for Epsilon: Decision-making implications: Question 7: On Attribute Perception Below is a screen shot of Market Study 14 (see page 19 of the Student Guide), which lists the ideal values (or needs) for all 5 segments on 6 product attributes and the performance
values of all products in the market on all the attributes. This would
be a great tool for analyzing your products’ market and relative
competitive performances. For example, the ideal Speed level for
Segment Alpha (Segment 1) is at level 12.4, while the actual Speed
levels for products Faldo and Fano are -12.9 and 11.4, respectively.
You may use the absolute “Performance – Need” difference score to
represent a product’s ability to meet customers’ need on an attribute,
assuming major departures in either direction are increasingly bad.
Please note that the values shown in Report 14 all range from -25 to
+25; these are non-dimensional (or standardized) values converted from
the original attribute scales for easiness of comparisons of product
performances across attributes. The original scales are shown in Report
9. The Performance - Need difference score for Faldo is:
-12.9 - 12.4 = -25.3 (for an absolute value of 25.3; or being very far
away from the ideal value). The Performance – Need difference
score for Fano is: 11.4 - 12.4 = -1 (for an absolute value of 1; or
being fairly close to the ideal value). Based on the above
information, Fano (at an absolute difference of 1) is much better than
Faldo (at an absolute difference of 25.3) in meeting Alpha customers’
need on Speed. Remember to use the absolute difference values to
make your judgment as values too high and too low could be equally
dissatisfying. The same logic of performance evaluations also applies
to Price, Complexity, and all other attributes (Price could be an indicator of overall quality so a very low price could be very undesirable). Question:
Use the above example as a reference to determine the relative
attractiveness of Faldo and Fano in meeting Segment Gamma’s (Segment
3’s) need on Frequency. (10 points) Your Answer: Hint:
You may use the below figure (a screen shot of Market Study 15 for this
Period) as a reference to verify the correctness of your answer. Optional but highly recommended extension of your answers: Please
generate an Excel table, complete with necessary formulas, which
automatically calculates the relative performances of all products on
all attributions. Furthermore, you may combine this analysis with the
attribute importance information to seek to increase the informational
value of all available data to you in your company’s strategic marketing
decision-making. Please use this opportunity to explore such analyses
so as to better help your company (team) make high informed decisions. Question 8: On Media Preferences The
following Market Study (8) shows the media sources from which customers
in various segments obtain product information. For example, Epsilon
customers get 43% of their product information from Direct mail, while
Alpha customers obtain 50% of their product information from Journals.
Report 3 (below) further shows how your company
allocated your total advertising budget across the media channels in the
last decision round. Question: Let’s assume that Baller
is targeted at Segment 4 (Delta). How might you want to adjust your
media spendings for Baller in the next Period? (10 points) Your Answer: Question 9: On Relative Performance Impacts of Your Own Products Below
is a summary of Report 6. Compare the relative performance of the two
products (Baller and Banness) in Period 0 (the last Period of decisions)
in terms of their sales percentages (of company total), gross profits
(of company total), expenses (of company total), and net contributions
(of company total). Which product seems to have performed much better
than the other in contributing to the company’s bottom-line? Why? How
might the company’s pricing decisions have caused the big differences in
their relative performances (Hint: examine the Gross Margin %)? What
would you do in the next round’s strategic marketing decision-making, in
terms of production, pricing, advertising about both products, given
the unequal profit impacts of these two products? (15 points) Report 6 - Income Statement Run Name: TGaoDemo-W1 Company: Comp 1 (Company 1) Period: 0 Baller Banness Total Gross Sales 19,555 34,933 54,488 - Distr Margin 6,523 11,133 17,655 Sales (net) 13,032 23,800 36,833 Cost of Sales 11,081 16,459 27,540 Gross Profit 1,951 7,342 9,293 Gross Margin (%) 10 21 17 Creative 100 100 200 Advertising 1,000 1,000 2,000 Holding Costs 337 437 773 Net Contribution 514 5,805 6,319 Note: Sales, expenses, and profits in thousand $s. Your Answer: Question 10: On Advertising Experiment Read
the explanations on advertising experiment (and on sales force
experiment) on page 18 of the student guide and examine the following
screen shot for Market Study 11 from the perspective of Company 1.
Based on this collective information, how much sales increase (in %
terms) could Company 1 expect to achieve with product Baller if it were
to double its advertising expenditure in the next Period, assuming
everything else is unchanged? What would you recommend that your
company do with regard to total advertising spending on both products in
the next decision round? Note: The negative numbers represent how the
sales of your competitors’ products will be (negatively) impacted as you
double your advertising spending, all else being unchanged. (10 points) Your answer: Question 11: On Conversion of Measurement Units Carefully
read page 43 of the Student Guide. Note that different product
attributes have different measurement units and different ranges of
customer preferences (as shown in Report 9). Non-dimensional (or
standardized) values are often used in perceptual maps to make easy
comparisons of products relative performances against customer demands
on various attributes. In Sabre, the customers’ demand levels for all
attributes are expressed in non-dimensional scales of -25 to 25 no
matter what the actual attribute ranges are. For example, whereas the
customers’ needs for Complexity range from 7 to 150, you would find the
ideal customer demand somewhere in between -25 and +25 using the
non-dimensional scales. When you do R&D on a product, you would
need to convert the non-dimensional value into actual measurement units.
Using the example given on page 43 of the Student Guide,
what actual attribute level would you aim for producing if the ideal
customer demand is 15 on the non-dimensional scale? (Hint: Use the
formula given on page 43 but change -11 to +15 and go from there. The
result would be much closer to 100 than to 20.) (10 points) Your Answer (Show your calculation process): Question 12. SWOT Analysis: Performance
a brief SWOT analysis of your company’s (or team’s) performance at the
end of Round 0 based on all the information (all reports and studies)
you have in Sabre. Specifically, identify the top 4 strengths, top 4
weaknesses, top 4 opportunities, and top 4 threats for your company.
Then briefly speculate how you would recommend to your teammates that
your company should do in Round 1 of decision-making. Please examine
the information contained in all the reports and studies and rank order
your answers for each categories of the SWOT analysis. (15 points) As
a general recommendation, all the answers to why some teams would be
winning and others losing are in the reports and studies. You may
export many reports and studies into Excel for more sophisticated
analyses, and being able to identify, generate, and perform such
extended analyses could very well determine your team’s ultimate
competitive performance. Your hard work in conducting these innovative
analyses would be rewarded not only in this simulation but also in the
real world, in terms of your advanced ability to contribute to your
current or future companies, as companies must perform essentially the
same analyses to make best informed strategic marketing decisions. Your Answer: