1

Customer Analytics for New Product Development

Final Exam
Apurva Madiraju, 71310044,Section A
______________________________________________________

Instructions:
This exam is an open book, open notes exam. However, you are expected to
complete the exam on your own, without help from classmates or others.

Please type your answers in this document. After completion, submit this document
to LMS.

There are 8 pages in the Exam Booklet.

You have two hours for the exam.

The total points for this exam is 100, and this exam is worth 30% of your final grade.

All the best!

2

Question 1 (30 points)
Focus on any product or service.
(1a) Describe the product or service in terms of benefits to the customer.
Product: SmartPhone
Benefits: Communication, Email, GPS, Camera, Music,Sports features.
Smartphones have enable easier and timely communication by providing access to emails and
other texting applications along with the calls. They help in navigation by using the GPS. The
camera features with high resolution and inbuilt photo editing feature helps in avoiding
carrying a camera as such. Having a larger memory in the smartphone enables storing a larger
amount of music. Sports applications enable customers to stay upto date with the scores.
Athletes(Runners) use the sports training apps for timing and to know the distance they ran.
(1b) You are asked to conduct a segmentation study for this product or service.
Construct a survey (questionnaire) with 10-12 questions, clearly specifying what the
basis and descriptor questions are. No open-ended questions are allowed; all
questions must be given in a form so that when data are collected, tools like Cluster
Analysis can be used.
Please do not use questions seen in your assignments or from MeXL
Basis variables are those needs/attributes that a customer requires from the product.
Descriptor variables are those variables that describe a customer and help in segmentation
Basis Variables: Battery Life, Camera Resolution, Memory, Weight, OS,Screen Size
Descriptor variables: Age, Income, Demographics
3

Aim of the survey is to find what features are useful or required in future for the new product.
1. Among the camera,emails, gps,sports applications-which are the features that you use
the most in your smartphone?
a.)camera b.)battery life c.)gps d.)screen size e.)weight d.)sports applications
2. Which among the above features are most important to you?
a.)camera b.)battery life c.)gps d.)screen size
3. Are you a working professional, student, retired, homemaker?
a.)professional b.)student c.)retired d.)homemaker
4. What is your age range?
a.)18-22 b.) 23-35 c.)35-45 d.)>45
5. The smartphone is used mostly for office purposes or personal?
a.) Official b.)personal c.)both
6. How often do you use the maps feature on your phone?
a.)Very often(daily basis) b.)Sometimes(occasions) c.) Rarely d.)Never
7. How important is a good touchscreen for you?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very often Never
8. How often do you check your emails on the phone?
a.)Very often(daily basis) b.)Sometimes(occasions) c.) Rarely d.)Never

9. How often do you download apps and other features on your phone?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very often Never

10. Do you prefer a large screen or a small screen?
4

a.)Large Screen b.) Small Screen c.) Not Particular
11. Do you prefer a sleak light weight smartphone or a regular phone?
a.)Sleak light weight b.) Regular c.) Not Particular
12. How often do you use the camera feature on your phone without editing the images?
a.) Very often(daily basis) b.) Sometimes(occasions) c.) Rarely d.)Never
13. How often you use the sports applications on your phone?
a.)Very often(daily basis) b.) Sometimes(occasions) c.) Rarely d.)Never
Question (2): 30 points
Design a Conjoint Study, with 3 attributes, with Price being one of the attributes.
List 2-3 levels for each attribute. Use MeXL to create bundles for data collection. Act
as a respondent in this Conjoint Analysis, and estimate your partworth utilities. (Hint:
you have done this in your Kirin Beer assignment).

(2a) Provide graphs to illustrate your utilities for each attribute


5





2b) Explain/describe your results (i.e. the partworth utility graphs in above question),
drawing relevant insights for each attribute.
From the above graph we observe that Ios is at the peak and so are apple phones. So
this is the most preferred.
Also we observe that no matter what price of a windows phone is, it is least preferred.
Similarly, iphone at a higher price is still preferred.
Iphone is closely followed by android.
Question(3):25points
The following questions deal with Ideal Points and Ideal Vectors (or preference
6

vectors) in a perceptual map.

(3a) Define Ideal Point in 1 sentence:
The ideal point represents the location (combination of attributes) of the product that most
appeals to a specific respondent. In other words it is the ideal brand.
(3b) What specific steps would you take in Perceptual Mapping analysis to get an Ideal
Point?
Ideal point is the ideal brand for a customer.
Steps taken in a perceptual map to get an ideal point are:
Combine attribute ratings of the ideal brand with other brands
Compare how brands differ from the ideal brand

(3c) Define Ideal Vector(or Preference Vector)in 1 sentence:

An ideal vector is a vector whose angle represents the importance of 2 dimensions as
perceived by the market. It captures the attributes.

(3d) What specific steps would you take in Perceptual Mapping analysis to get an Ideal
Vector (or Preference Vector)?
Ideal vector is nothing but the preference vector
7

Steps used to create an ideal vector in a perceptual map are
Include preferences as an additional attribute for all brands.
Analyze the preference as a separate attribute
Take the ones with most influential preferences to be the identifiers.

Question (4): 15 points
Explain a step-by-step process as to how you would use Conjoint Analysis to estimate the
incremental price to be charged for a product with a new feature, such that its market
share remains constant. In other words, how much more can you charge for a product
with a new feature so that the market share beforethe addition of the new feature, and
after the addition of the new feature stays constant?
When conjoint analysis in MEXL is ran for existing products we get a preferred part
worths.
We re run the analysis using the new product(new feature). We get a pie chart containing
the market share . We observe that for certain other products the market share may have
reduced.
Now we re run conjoint using the optimal product option.
We get different options, we choose the option with highest market share for the new
product.
Now we compare the values from the previous run and the new run(optimal)
We observe which features have changed and which price range is giving an optimal
market share.
Based on this we can decide how much we can charge on the product.
8

Whether the new rate is required or not. We get options of market share and how much
price was charged.
Based on this we can make a decision.