Sawtooth Software

Last updated
Sawtooth Software, Inc.
Type Private
IndustryResearch Software
Founded Sun Valley, Idaho, United States (1983 (1983))
FounderRichard M. Johnson
Headquarters Provo, Utah, United States
Products
  • ACA
  • ACBC
  • CBC
  • CBC/HB
  • CBC Latent Class
  • CCEA
  • MaxDiff
  • MBC
Website sawtoothsoftware.com

Sawtooth Software, Inc. is a computer software company based in Provo, Utah, United States. The company provides survey software tools, and specializes in conjoint analysis.

Contents

According to the American Marketing Association, Sawtooth Software was ranked fourth in 2005 among software used in market research (after SPSS, Microsoft Excel, and SAS System). [1]

History

In the late 1960s, Rich Johnson, who was then an employee of Market Facts, Inc., developed a technique they called "Tradeoff Analysis". It consisted of questioning respondents about various concepts composed of multiple attributes and comparing their responses to the different concepts. In 1971, Paul Green published an article titled "Conjoint Measurement for Quantifying Judgmental Data". [2] When Johnson became aware of Green's research, he identified his technique as a variety of conjoint analysis.

In the mid 70's, Johnson co-founded the John Morton Company in part to apply computer technology to Tradeoff Analysis. Johnson purchased an Apple II and began to program interviews for use on client projects. Each project was programmed custom for the client. During this time Johnson was fascinated by the ability of the computer to facilitate the collection of respondent data.

In 1982 Johnson left the John Morton Company and founded Sawtooth Software to pursue creating generalized software for use in marketing research. [3]

Products

Sawtooth Software has created products for traditional conjoint analysis, as well as discrete choice analysis and other forms of conjoint. In addition there are non-conjoint products involving interviewing, perceptual mapping, and cluster analysis.

Conjoint Techniques

Analysis Techniques

General Interviewing Packages

Relationships

Sawtooth Software maintains relationships with academics and market research organizations such as the American Marketing Association and ESOMAR. Researchers developing new interviewing techniques such as Maximum Difference (Best Worst) have used Sawtooth Software to assist in constructing their projects.

In addition to producing products, Sawtooth Software has also hosted a research conference every 18 months in the United States since 1987. The conference is not a sales event, and speakers with contrary opinions or competing products attend and present.

Related Research Articles

Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

Concept testing is the process of using surveys to evaluate consumer acceptance of a new product idea prior to the introduction of a product to the market. It is important not to confuse concept testing with advertising testing, brand testing and packaging testing, as is sometimes done. Concept testing focuses on the basic product idea, without the embellishments and puffery inherent in advertising.

Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors and different from the concept of brand awareness. In order to position products or brands, companies may emphasize the distinguishing features of their brand or they may try to create a suitable image through the marketing mix. Once a brand has achieved a strong position, it can become difficult to reposition it. To effectively position a brand and create a lasting brand memory, brands need to be able to connect to consumers in an authentic way, creating a brand persona usually helps build this sort of connection.

In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers based on shared characteristics.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preference regression</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conjoint analysis</span>

Conjoint analysis is a survey-based statistical technique used in market research that helps determine how people value different attributes that make up an individual product or service.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter</span>

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Choice modelling attempts to model the decision process of an individual or segment via revealed preferences or stated preferences made in a particular context or contexts. Typically, it attempts to use discrete choices in order to infer positions of the items on some relevant latent scale. Indeed many alternative models exist in econometrics, marketing, sociometrics and other fields, including utility maximization, optimization applied to consumer theory, and a plethora of other identification strategies which may be more or less accurate depending on the data, sample, hypothesis and the particular decision being modelled. In addition, choice modelling is regarded as the most suitable method for estimating consumers' willingness to pay for quality improvements in multiple dimensions.

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The marketing research process is a six-step process involving the definition of the problem being studied upon, determining what approach to take, formulation of research design, field work entailed, data preparation and analysis, and the generation of reports, how to present these reports, and overall, how the task can be accomplished.

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SIMALTO – SImultaneous Multi-Attribute Trade Off – is a survey based statistical technique used in market research that helps determine how people prioritise and value alternative product and/or service options of the attributes that make up individual products or services.

References

  1. Marketing News, February 1, 2005, p. 55
  2. Journal of Market Research, 8:355-63, 1971
  3. History of ACA, Richard M Johnson, 2001