Use strategic market models to predict customer behavior

Positioning products in a complex market can be one of a company's most difficult decisions. in determining whether to combine or maintain separate product lines, Hewlett-Packard used an approach it calls strategic market modeling (SMM) to design ''what if'' scenarios and run simulations to predict market behavior. SMM combines demographic, user needs, and competitive perception data into a database for testing alternative positioning strategies. The author describes HP's development of SMM and the lessons learned.