A test of the Bass model for forecasting adoption in a professional services market

Abstract

Data was collected from market research offices in Australia in mid-1999 on their adoption of using the Internet to collect primary data. Based upon this, the Bass model was used to forecast the growth in further adoption, up to mid-2002, of their use of email and web-based surveys. These forecasts were presented to the market research industry at this time. In mid- 2002 data was again collected from market research offices to establish the levels of adoption of these two methods. From this the forecasting accuracy of the model could be ascertained. It was found that if the growth in the number of market research offices over the period was allowed for, the accuracy was within 1.6% for web-based survey adoption and 8.6% for email surveys. The most commonly cited uses of the Bass model are for the adoption of durable goods; this study adds an application in the professional services domain. The fieldwork in 1999 also established the nature of the influence on adoption - published sources or other users and obtained measures of these. The relationship of these measures and the values of p, the coefficient of innovation and q, the coefficient of imitation, is commented upon and further research proposed.