Inspired by the last few lectures of Business Analytics, I thought to come up with a story of how a man can use Conjoint Analysis in the process of arrange marriages and get himself the most suitable wife.
So the story goes like this...
After a lot of persistence from his parents, Dhruv agreed to start looking for a suitable girl for marriage. But he was not sure as to how would he be able to know if the girl was “perfect” for him. He was looking for a guaranteed method that he could use in the process.
Just a day before he was about to start meeting girls, he miraculously got what he was looking for. During his Business Analytics class he was taught Conjoint Analysis. Conjoint Analysis is a market research technique in which consumers make tradeoffs between two or more features and benefits of a product on a scale ranging from 'Most Preferred' to 'Least Preferred.' coupled with techniques such as simulation analysis, conjoint analysis helps in evaluation of different points.
Just during this lecture, Dhruv got an idea that by using Conjoint Analysis he could cut down on meeting all the 15 girls his mother wanted him to meet. Right after the class he prepared a list of possible attributes that he wanted in his life partner. The list contained things like looks, family background, intelligence, occupation, education, household skills etc. After putting all the attributes and the options for each attribute, (for e.g. Attribute – looks, Options – Very good looking, good looking, average) he came up with all the permutations and combinations possible.
Once his list was final, he sat with his mom to discuss what all attributes that every girl had. He prepared an excel sheet with all the data he collected. Now the next step was to rate all the girls out of 10 on the attributes that were similar to his dream girl. During the rating only, he was sure that he didn’t want to meet 8 girls as they were not at all compatible with him. Once the rating was done, he put the data in SPSS and analyzed it. Now after analyzing the data, he came to know what all factors were more important to him than the others. Now he was sure about what attributes to look for in the girls he would meet.
Now was the most important thing – look for the attributes in the girls. One by one he met the remaining 7 females and analyzed them on the attributes that were most important to him. In less than 4 days he had met all the 7 girls and now he had to see who fit the bill the most. Some of them were close to what he was looking for and some of them missed the target by a mile. He finally shortlisted 2 girls (both of them were ranked 10 by him earlier) that he thought were the closest to what he wanted. He thanked his Conjoint Analysis and SPSS software to make his task so much simpler. The software had done its job; it would be of no help any further.
Now Dhruv will have to trust his instincts and GOD to get his soul mate. Tomorrow he will be meeting both the girls once more and then decide who would he want as his wife. Let’s all of us wish him all the best for one of the most important decision of his life.
Written by: Ajvad Rehmani
Group: 13003
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