Services

Industry Services available within the hub

Qualitative Multivariate Analysis (QMA)

A QMA is:

  • Qualitative: description of qualities or characteristics rather than quantities or measured values.
  • Multivariate: encompassing the simultaneous observations of more than one outcome variable.
  • Analysis: detailed examination of the elements or structure of a product.

In other words – QMA is a method for sorting groups (eg products, packages) with reference to each other(eg similarities and differences) based on their qualities.

As a small or medium size company, you typically already have a model of how the market works in Australia.  You know what works for your brand or products. As you consider exporting to Asia, this sorting of products or packages by ‘new-to-Australia’ consumers (from your anticipated market) will give you a ‘disaster-check’ and can provide powerful insights into your target consumers BEFORE you do expensive in-market research or export directly.

This disaster-check allows you to understand the differences in cultural biases between Australia and your considered Asian Market.  Products are typically evaluated in a holistic way by consumers: the product is tasted, the package is evaluated and the brand is considered.  This method is much closer to how consumers normally interact with products.  (New-to-Australia consumers have typically been in Australia less than 2 years.)

Outputs:

  • How your product, package, brand or technology is positioned in relation to in-market products identifying common / different attributes.  This is valuable when you are negotiating with retailers in your export market.
  • What key cues are more familiar or unfamiliar so you can understand what barriers you may encounter and plan to mitigate, and which attributes to leverage for future products.
  • Identification of adjacent categories to provide attributes that might be more familiar to the consumer.
  • Identification of consumer frameworks in the marketplace.
  • Identification of potential white space or opportunities in the marketplace.
  • Identification of hypothesis and needs to test for future research.

Please email us at food-value-chain@unimelb.edu.au if you would like to schedule a discussion on how to access this serviceimage of a QMA session