Warranty cards as a new source of industrial marketing information

The paper proposes a solution to the information gap between industrial and marketing managers and their dealers. It outlines a model and a decision support system (DSS) which can turn warranty card data into operational information for forecasting retail sales and dealer inventories. The model is based on the average time in distribution (ATD), a new statistic calculated from warranty cards returned by customers. W While warranty card returns are highly random both in number and arrival rate, the ATD is a relatively stable indicator of retail activities, providing an additional perspective on sales and forecasting. A possible system design is proposed by which the manager can manipulate such data in order to support his or her decisions.