Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

a panel of experts has been formed by the co-ordinator the Delphi study

will have at least four phases:

Phase 1

A letter is sent to each of the experts asking them to state the scientific break-

through and technological developments that they feel are firstly beneficial

and secondly could be attainable in the next 25 years. Each expert will send

his or her independent judgement back to the co-ordinator. From these lists

the co-ordinator will create a comprehensive list or choose those items of

particular concern to the organisation undertaking the study.

Phase 2

In Phase 2 each expert is sent the list and asked to judge for each item the

probability of when each potential development will take place. The

timescale would normally be broken down into 5-year bands.

Therefore one expert may reply to a question as follows:

118 Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control

Year By 2005 2006–2010 2011–2015 2016–2020 2021–2025 Never
Probability 0.0 0.15 0.25 0.35 0.25 0.00

Year By 2005 2006–2010 2011–2015 2016–2020 2021–2025 Never
Probability 0.5 0.10 0.15 0.25 0.45 0.00

A second expert’s judgement however may be different:

The co-ordinator will then collate all the replies and draw up charts display-

ing the distribution of experts’ responses for each potential development.

Phase 3

The co-ordinator will then write to each panel member enclosing the

charts that have been developed as a result of Phase 2. These results will

however be broken down into two areas. One set of results will have a

very small spread of responses and therefore a near consensus. The other

set will have a wide spread of responses and therefore be clearly non-

consensus items. On each question the expert can see how far they are

away from the average. They are then asked to reassess their responses.

Experts that are at an extreme position from the mean can be asked to give

a rationale for their prediction if they continue to maintain their position.

Phase 4

This is a repeat of Phase 3 except the experts will now consider revised

charts that have been developed as a result of the reconsideration that