Consumer Report The Consumer Report illustrates the aspects of your product offerings that are important to your consumers.
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Correct Answer
Based on the provided image, here are the grading criteria for a product in the Traditional segment:
To Score an A:
- Price: $20.00 – $23.33
- Reliability (MTBF): 17,334 – 19,000
- Age: 0.5 year away from ideal
- Positioning: 0.5 away from ideal
- Awareness: 80% – 100%
- Accessibility: 80% – 100%
- Overall: The top two buying criteria for the segment were rated A, and the awareness and accessibility were rated at least B.
To Score a B:
- Price: $23.34 – $26.67
- Reliability (MTBF): 15,667 – 17,333
- Age: 1 year away from ideal
- Positioning: 0.6 – 1 away from ideal
- Awareness: 51% – 80%
- Accessibility: 51% – 80%
- Overall: The top two buying criteria for the segment were rated B, and the awareness and accessibility were rated at least B.
To Score a C:
- Price: $26.67 – $30.00
- Reliability (MTBF): 14,000 – 15,666
- Age: 1+ years away from ideal
- Positioning: 1 away from ideal
- Awareness: 0% – 50%
- Accessibility: 0% – 50%
- Overall: If you are not able to meet the criteria to score an A or B, then your score will be a C.
Explanation
The provided document, titled “Consumer Report,” outlines a method for evaluating how well a company’s product meets customer expectations within the Capstone business simulation. The goal is to “grade” the product on a scale of A, B, or C based on its alignment with the ideal buying criteria for a specific market segment.
This grading system is based on several key performance metrics: Price, Reliability (measured in Mean Time Before Failure or MTBF), Age, Positioning, Awareness, and Accessibility. The document uses the Traditional market segment as a detailed example. The core principle highlighted is that customer preferences dictate the grade. For instance, because consumers in the Traditional segment prefer lower prices and higher reliability, a product receives a better grade for being priced at the lower end of the acceptable range and having reliability at the higher end. A product priced between $20.00 and $23.33 earns an A, while a product priced between $26.67 and $30.00 earns a C. Conversely, a higher MTBF range of 17,334 to 19,000 earns an A for reliability.
The overall grade for a product is not just an average of its individual scores. To achieve an overall “A,” a product must earn an “A” on the top two most important buying criteria for its segment while also maintaining at least a “B” in awareness and accessibility. This structure emphasizes the importance of excelling in the factors that matter most to consumers. The instructions specify that this analytical process should be repeated for every market segment, using the unique buying criteria detailed in the Capstone Courier reports to understand a product’s competitive strength from the customer’s perspective.
