Away With SWOT Analysis: Use Defensive/Offensive Evaluation Instead

SWOT analysis, which delves into a business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is used widely in firms and classrooms to distill fragmentary facts and figures into concise depictions of the strategic landscape.  Yet despite its popularity and longevity, the SWOT approach to situation assessment often is ineffective.  This article begins with a brief critique of the SWOT framework ­and typical SWOT analysis guidelines.  Thereafter, Defensive/Offensive Evaluation (DOE) is advanced as an effective alternative to SWOT analysis.  Because DOE is more theory-driven, it poses keener questions and promises more illuminating answers

Card-Contingent Discounts As Sources Of Customer Satisfaction And Dissatisfaction: An Exploratory Inquiry

The reported exploratory study was undertaken to illuminate the effects of card-contingent discounts (CCDs) on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction.  CCDs are price reductions on certain items that are given only to customers who present a card issued by the seller.  Results from our survey of 953 grocery store patrons indicate that shoppers tend to frame CCDs as price reductions to which they are entitled; denying discounts is judged unfair.  Typical customers are content, rather than delighted, when CCDs are granted and are disappointed or annoyed when CCDs are withheld.  CCDs, therefore, seem more likely to engender dissatisfaction than enhance satisfaction