Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Importance and Performance (I-P) Analysis 
Importance and performance analysis was introduced by Martilla and James in the 1970s. This analysis 
helps firms to decide which aspects of the marketing mix they should pay more attention to or which marketing mix 
for which they shouldn’t consume too many resources. For the analysis, the I-P matrix is divided into four quadrants 

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2007 Annual International CHRIE Conference & Exposition 
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to distinguish between high and low performance and between high and low importance. If a firm’s performance is 
high for the important variables, they “keep up the good work” according to I-P analysis. If that firm has high 
performance for no important variables it indicates “possible overkill” for those areas (Weber, 2000). The most 
critical quadrant for firms are “concentrate here” which means importance is higher than performance for some 
variables. Marketers shouldn’t worry about “low priority” because both performance and importance are low for this 
quadrant (Martilla and James, 1977).