Method and system for evaluating product substitutions along multiple criteria in response to a sales opportunity

A system for evaluating product substitutions along multiple criteria in response to a sales opportunity, comprising:

• a data storage module operable to store at least product data, customer propensity attributes and weights, and seller propensity attributes and weights;
• and
• a processing engine module operable to determine customer propensity and seller propensity, and propensity rankings associated with each of a plurality of products, the processing engine module further operable to generate one or more substitute product recommendations based on both the determined customer propensity and the seller propensity,
• the customer propensity determined as a combination of at least:
• a value representing a price difference between an initial customer choice and a substitute product, a penalty value that penalizes a choice of a component that has a lower quality than that chosen by the customer in a same commodity group, and a penalty value that penalizes choosing a component in the substitute product that is not in the customer's initial choice and that penalizes a component in the customer's initial choice that is absent in the substitute.

A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for evaluating substitute product recommendations along multiple criteria in response to a sales opportunity, comprising:

• determining a customer propensity to estimate attractiveness of a substitute product to a customer based on one or more first attributes;
• determining a seller propensity to estimate attractiveness to a seller of selling the substitute product based on one or more second attributes;
• and
• combining the customer propensity and the seller propensity to find a plurality of substitute products,
• the customer propensity determined as a combination of at least:
• a value representing a price difference between an initial customer choice and a substitute product, a penalty value that penalizes a choice of a component that has a lower quality than that chosen by the customer in a same commodity group, and a penalty value that penalizes choosing a component in the substitute product that is not in the customer's initial choice and that penalizes a component in the customer's initial choice that is absent in the substitute.