Patent ID: 7725347

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for facilitating evaluation, in connection with the procurement or delivery of products or services, in a context of at least one of (i) a financial transaction and (ii) operation of an enterprise, such context involving a first class of parties in a first role and a second class of counterparties in a second role, the method comprising: supplying to each of the parties a series of forced choice questions so as to elicit party responses; in a first computer process that uses conjoint analysis of the party responses, determining a party preference profile for each of the parties; supplying to each of the counterparties a series of forced choice questions so as to elicit counterparty responses; in a second computer process that uses conjoint analysis of the counterparty responses, determining a counterparty preference profile for each of the counterparties; in a third computer process, for a selected party, performing bilateral analyses of the selected party's preference profile and the preference profile of each of the counterparties, by computing a closeness-of-fit value based thereon; and in a fourth computer process, using the computed closeness-of-fit values to derive and provide a list matching the selected party and at least one of the counterparties.