Mekayla Lowe

Business Case Analysis

Apple dominates the tablet market with the iPad. Our client could potentially obtain newer technology, including some potential breakthrough features but so do Apple's other competitors. Thus, bringing a new tablet to market will take 12-18 months, during which Apple could release a new tablet and the competitive environment could also shift. Our client could buy analyst reports, field a survey, conduct focus groups, or even use a concept testing service to evaluate their tablet's chances. But the high potential for the market to shift makes this difficult. To truly understand whether and how to enter the market, they need to simulate how consumers would react to their product introduction based on different market scenarios.
The client could maximize their chances of success by building a forecasting model that takes into account consumers' preferences for different brands and product features, as well as consumers’ informed opinions on what products they would prefer in different market scenarios.
While their main objective is to decide whether to release their tablet, they really have three goals: * Understand which product features are most important to consumers * Quantify their potential market share and profit opportunity based on the current market * Understand the impact on potential market share and profit opportunity of Apple introducing a new tablet device
A standard discrete choice study by using the strategy matrix would be appropriate to address the first two objectives; the third requires the Porter’s Five Forces Analysis. Introduce the scenario of Apple introducing a new tablet to the market, and test scenarios where there are multiple competitors from Apple. By comparing these new scenarios to consumer reactions to the current market, this helps the client measure the additional risk to