SMART

The owner of a small business is unhappy with the service she

has been receiving from her bank and has decided to move
her account to a rival bank. Her decision on which bank to
choose will be based not only on the estimated annual bank
charges which each bank will levy, but also on the following
benefit attributes:
a)
The proximity of the local branch
b)
Whether the local branch has a small business adviser
c)The maximum automatic loan allowed
d)
Whether a telephone banking facility is offered
The alternative banks together with their estimated annual
costs and the scores the business owner has allocated for
each of the benefit attributes will be given later.

Clue 1
Estimated
annual charge
($)
Central
3000
Northern

5000

Direct

2000

Royal

1000

Marks

4000

Clue 2

For the business owner, the bank with the closest proximity
is the Northern Bank local branch, while the farthest one is
Central Bank local branch. The proximity improvement score
of moving from Central Bank to Marks Bank is 90. This
improvement of moving from Central Bank to Marks Bank is
third times better than of moving to Royal Bank. She also
state that moving from Direct Bank to Marks Bank is worth
20 improvement score.

Clue 3
Only Direct Bank and Royal Bank that
do not have a small business adviser.

Clue 4
Royal Bank has the lowest maximum
automatic loan allowed among all the banks
she considered. On this maximum automatic
loan allowed, the improvement of moving
from Royal Bank to Marks Bank is 20 points
according to the decision maker. However,
the improvement of moving from Royal Bank
to Central Bank is twice better of moving to
Marks Bank. Its also twice better to move
from Royal Bank to Northern Bank than to
move to Central Bank in term of maximum
automatic loan allowed. Direct Bank has the
highest maximum automatic loan allowed.

Clue 5
Only Direct Bank and Royal Bank that
offered a telephone banking facility.

Clue 6
The business owner is then asked to imagine that she has her account with a
hypothetical bank which had the lowest scores on all of the benefit
attributes. She is then asked to imagine that each attribute could be switched
to its best possible value and asked to rank the attractiveness of these
possible switches. Her ranks are given as:
Rank
1
2
3
4

Switch
Lowest maximum loan facility to highest
No telephone banking facility to existence of this
facility
Non-availability of small business adviser to
availability
Least close branch to closest branch

In the business owner opinion, the swing from the bank without telephone
banking facility to the bank with one is about 50%. She also stated that the
swing from the bank with the farthest proximity to the bank with the closest
proximity is about 10%, while the swing from the banks without small business
adviser to the bank with one is about 30%.