We're excited about Adaptive CBC (ACBC) and think it will change the way we think about and conduct stated choice research for complex problems involving about five or more attributes.
Sawtooth Software's products have benefited immensely from the interaction between practitioners and the academic community. We are not secretive about the algorithms and methodologies so that others may scrutinize and test our work. At our conferences and in the academic literature, the methods have been examined and tested. Some investigations have been favorable toward our work, while others have been critical. When the criticism has merit, we strive to improve the techniques.
The first version of ACBC continues this tradition. Over the last three years, we have presented the methodology and results at both academic and practitioner research conferences. We have submitted it for review among leading academics in discrete choice modeling. It has undergone a thorough beta test process with over 50 users. Over 50 studies were fielded and analyzed during an eight-month beta test program. The feedback from the beta testers (and their clients) has been more than positive. Since the release of ACBC in March 2009, many more projects have been completed. Two papers were delivered at the Sawtooth Software conference in March of 2009 that highlighted successful applications. Two additional case studies were delivered at the May 2009 joint SKIM/Sawtooth Software event in Prague, Czech Republic on ACBC.
According to our customer tracking survey conducted in April 2011, ACBC projects represented 11% of conjoint analysis studies conducted over the previous 12 months (by Sawtooth Software customers if using CBC, ACBC, ACA, or CVA). ACBC's usage was greater than ACA and CVA's use combined. This shows that in the short two years that ACBC has been available, it has established itself as an important new tool in our users' conjoint repetoire.
