database, consisting of 100 observations on 18 separate variables, is based on a market segmentation study of HBAT customers.

Background

HBAT industries (HBAT), is a premium manufacturer of paper products in U.S. Its paper products are used widely in the newsprint industry and the magazine industry both inside and outside of North America. It is a well established company with a fully developed Marketing unit. The company either uses it distribution channels or brokers channel to supply the paper products to the customer. But due to the changing customer perceptions and relationships, the company is facing challenges by newer companies. HBAT management is concerned and wants to change their marketing strategy for the next year to regain its market share. HBAT wants to identify and position itself accordingly to the characteristics of its customers and the relationships between their perceptions of HBAT, and their actions towards HBAT (e.g., satisfaction and likelihood to recommend).

 To help HBAT marketing unit, the management has hired Crimson Consulting Co. (Crimson). Crimson Consulting Co., is an established marketing research company. It has one of the well established lead-user groups. Crimson collected part of the data set through online surveys of HBAT customers completed on a secure website. Crimson contacts purchasing managers and encourages them to participate. To do so, managers log to the web and finish the survey. The survey data are supplemented by other information compiled and stored in HBAT’s data warehouse and accessible through its decision support system. 

Database

The database, consisting of 100 observations on 18 separate variables, is based on a market segmentation study of HBAT customers. As you already know, HBAT sells paper products to two market segments: the newsprint industry and the magazine industry. The paper products are sold to these market segments either directly to the customer, or indirectly through broker.

 Two types of information were collected in the surveys. The first type of information was perceptions of HBAT’s performance on 13 attributes. These attributes, developed through focus groups, a pretest, and variables used in previous studies, are considered to be the most influential in the selection of suppliers in the paper industry. Respondents included purchasing managers of firms buying from HBAT, and they rated HBAT on each of the 13 attributes using a 0-10 scale, with 10 being “Excellent” and 0 being “Poor”. The second type of information relates to purchase outcomes and business relationships (e.g., satisfaction with HBAT and whether the firm would consider a strategic alliance / partnership with HBAT).

 A third type of information is available from HBAT’s data warehouse and includes information

such as size of customer and length of purchase relationship. 

Data information and description

1 Adapted from J. F. Hair Jr. et al., Multivariate Data Analysis, 6th ed., Pearson, New Jersey (2006). 

Brief descriptions of the database variables are provided in Table 1-1, in which the variables are classified as either independent or dependent, and either metric or non-metric. A definition of each variable and an explanation of its coding are provided in the following sections. 

 Data Classification 

Data Warehouse Classification Variables

As respondents were selected for the sample to be used by the marketing research firm, five variables were extracted from HBAT’s data warehouse to reflect the basic firm characteristics and their business relationship with HBAT. The five variables are as follows: