Application of Voc Translation Tools-a Case Study

In today's highly competitive environment, where sources of product and processbased competitive advantage are quickly imitated by competitors, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate on technical features and quality alone. Companies may overcome this problem by incorporating the ‘voice of the customer’ into the design of new products and focusing on customer value, thereby offering total solutions to customer needs. Therefore, it is critical for all technologybased companies to gain an accurate understanding of the potential value of their offerings, and to learn how this value can be further enhanced. There are many tools that help translate the Voice of the customer, to the Voice of the designer, but it is important to choose the right tool and in the correct sequence, for a successful product development.An important tool to elicit customer value at an early stage of the product development is the conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis is a research technique for measuring customers' preferences, and it is a method for simulating how customers might react to changes in current products or to new products introduced into an existing competitive market. The paper discusses, how the ‘hardware’ features and the ‘software’ features, from a customer’s point of view, need to be translated into product features and also, the sequencing of the tools, to achieve a perfect drill-down into conjoint analysis, which is an ultimate tool to help translate the Voice of the customer.