Market-driven Quantification of Competitive Advantage by Means of Conjoint Measurement

Market-driven Quantification of Competitive Advantage by Means of Conjoint Measurement an object being evaluated as a bundle of features or attributes. These attributes should capture all essential aspects of an object. Based on respondent evaluations, the conjoint measurement allows for the derivation of utility functions of attributes which, in turn, establish a total object value [5]. In order to quantify the market effects of a specific decision, suitable KBF describing the dimensions of the market performance are to be selected. A set of levels is assigned to each KBF. These represent different levels of performance. Based on the KBF and their assigned levels, respondents are asked to evaluate several alternative market performances in terms of their desirability. Two methods currently exist for the acquisition of data, within the context of a conjoint measurement. In the trade-off-approach, the respondent is required to arrange all level combinations of two KBFs, in terms of their preference. The full-profile approach requires the respondents to make paired comparisons, by selecting their preferred KBF combinations each characterized by a single performance level for every KBF. Based on these ratings, a utility contribution per KBF-level or, repectively, a utility function for each KBF, may be determined. Several statistical estimation procedures, e.g.