ASSIGNMENT 3

Customer-Focused Product Planning (CFPP)

Submitted By:
FT224030- Shivani Sharma
ASSIGNMENT 1:

1. Describe in words the decision criteria you used in ranking the eighteen cards. Which factors were
more important to you? Were there any levels of factors that made a bike pump very unattractive to
you? Any other comments?

Following were the factors that influenced the decision criteria while ranking the given cards:

 I am price sensitive as bike pump is a product which I will not be using on daily basis. I will use
the pump only incase of emergency and where I would not find a shop to fill the air in tyres (for
ex: on long bike ride). Hence, I preferred low price for the bike pump as my decision criteria.
 The most important attribute is ‘Ease of Inflation’. Since, I have planned to use the bike pump in
case of emergency, hence I would prefer it to be easy to understand and use.
 ‘Total Time’ is another important factor as I have related that total time is directly related to the
ease of use. If the bike pump takes more time to do the work, I would not prefer it as my main
motive to use the bike pump is the emergency situation.
 When compared to other attributes, ‘Size’ of the bike pump is less important to me. I think that
bike pump is a necessary product for all the bike riders, and hence the size is of least concern.
All the available options in size are appropriate and can be combined with the above-mentioned
attributes to obtain the desired results.

ASSIGNMENT 3:

1. Do the attribute importance’s reported on the bottom of the utility plots correspond
approximately to your answer in step 4 of Assignment # 1? Explain.

Following is the report presented at the bottom of the utility plot:

Attributes Importance in utility chart

Price 26.3%
Ease of
inflation 26.3%
Total Time 26.3%
Size 21.2%
The provided report does not give appropriate answer for my analysis. As per my analysis Price should
have the highest importance in the utility chart followed by Ease of inflation, Total time and lastly the
size. I have expected the variation in the percentage of the importance of the attributes. But as per the
report suggest equal weightage for first 3 attributes. I think so the ambiguity in my analysis and the
report is due to the score scale which I have taken for the attributes while ranking the card. The score
scale was not same for all the attributes.

Following were my soring criteria for the cards:

 Price Total Time Size Ease of inflation
price score TT score Size score ease score
10 10 0.5 15 Book Bag -13 Easy 10
20 5 2 -5 Fanny Bag 3 Medium 5
40 -15 5 -10 Pocket 10 Difficult -15

2. Based on the utility functions, is it theoretically correct to say that the factor levels that have
negative utilities are disliked, and the factor levels that have positive utilities are liked? Why
or why not?

No, it is not correct to say that factor levels that have negative utilities are disliked and factor levels that
have positive utility are liked. This is because moving the utility chart up or down will not alter choices.
Hence if we move the factors level up then it will have a positive utility. The sign of the utility does not
play a role here in our decision making. The conjoint only gives us the relative likeliness between the
various attributes.

3. Based on the utility functions, approximately how much are you willing to pay a bike pump
that would take 0.5 min, to pump rather than 2 minutes (all other product attributes
remaining the same)? Explain your calculations. Would you, in fact, be willing to pay that
amount for this change?

Based on utility functions obtained from the chart, total time of inflation has 26.3% importance. Total
time is an important factor in my decision making, hence, I would consider to pay extra for pump that
would take 0.5 mins rather than 2 mins. I will change the least amount from $10 to $15.

Below mentioned is the calculation for the same:

For Time Taken:

Total utility of time curve =14.8 -(-11.4) = 26.2

1.5 mins = 26.2 utils

So, 1 utils = 17.467 mins

For Price:

Total utility of price curve= 12.2- (-14.1) = 26.3

$30 = 26.3 utils

So, 1 utils = $0.8767

Therefore, amount willing to pay= 17.467 * 0.8767 = $15.31= $15 (approx.)

4. Suppose you were to choose between the following two bike pumps. What do the utility
functions predict that you would choose? Which one would you, in fact, chooses?
Following are the utility function values for the products based on the graph:

U(A) = P ($20) +S (Book bag) +T (5 mins) +E (Ease)

U(B) = P ($20) +S (Fanny Bag) +T (2 mins) +E (Difficult)

Product Price Size Total time Inflation Total utility

A 1.9 -11.4 -11.4 9.7 0.2
B 1.9 1.7 -3.4 -16.6 -16.4

Based on the above utility function I will choose Pump A over Pump B. I would in fact choose Pump A as
Price and Ease of Inflation is one of the important attributes which I have considered before for ranking
the cards. Since, Price is same for both the products so Ease of Inflation is the deciding factor to choose
the product. Product A is easy to use while Product B is difficult to use, so, Product A will be chosen.