استراتژی بازاریابی بهینه : تصمیم گیری با ANP و TOPSIS

The purpose of the current study is to model the marketing strategy decision-making problem as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem and provide a five-step decision support framework to make and carefully assess the marketing strategies. A marketing strategy decision-making framework is essential for marketing strategists to determine the most appropriate marketing strategy in an efficient manner. The contribution of the current study lies in the practical implementation of the integration of the analytic network process (ANP) and technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS), which can be utilized by marketing strategists in a real industry to determine the appropriate marketing strategy. In addition, the results provide guidance to private hotel managers on marketing strategies that can help them to obtain a competitive advantage by evaluating their specific and limited marketing resources. The proposed framework can be easily understood and followed by marketing strategists to determine the appropriate marketing strategy.

Marketing is a critical function that helps corporations in surviving crises. For the past 20 years, greater emphasis has been placed on the role of marketing considerations in the managerial process, underscoring the important role that marketing plays in contributing to a firm’s competitive success (Brooksbank et al., 2003). It is widely accepted that the marketing function should enter the managerial process in the early stages (Wind, 1987). To simultaneously pursue increased revenues and profits, decision makers should select one of the diverse range of marketing strategies. Various strategic choices imply the need for reasonable implementation and control actions in a diverse set of functional units. In addition, utilizing technology to alter the competitive paradigm suggests that combining computerization with marketing activities offers critical advantages (Stone and Good, 2001). A marketing strategy decision can be classified as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. Marketing strategists should consider a large number of complex factors while evaluating and selecting marketing strategies. MCDM methods are recommended as being helpful in reaching important decisions that cannot be determined in a straightforward manner. The underlying principle of MCDM is that decisions should be made based on multiple criteria (Cheng et al., 2005). Hence, it is better to employ MCDM methods for solving certain problems effectively. Given the complexity of the problems associated with a marketing strategy system, it seems difficult to comprehensively manage such a system through the use of a single set of guidelines or one decision model comprehensively. The analytic network process (ANP) is a general theory in the ratio scale that measures influence, based on a methodology that deals with dependence and feedback (Saaty, 1996). Many traditional MCDM methods are based on the independence assumption. However, in many situations, the relationships between individual criteria are not completely independent (Shee et al., 2003). The ANP has been successfully applied in many fields, such as process decisions (Partovi, 2007), total quality management (TQM) (Bayazit and Karpak, 2007), information technology (IT) (Kengpol and Tuominen, 2006), enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation (Hallikainen et al., (2009)), strategic alliance partner selection (Chen et al., 2008 and Büyüközkan et al.,), new product development (NPD) (Lee et al., 2008), product mix planning (Chung et al., (2003)), reverse logistics project (Ravi et al., 2008) and so on. Furthermore, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) developed by Hwang and Yoon (1981) is a distance-based MCDM method that is used for determining alternatives. The TOPSIS is based on positive-ideal and negative-ideal solutions that are determined by the distance of each alternative from the best and the worst performing alternatives. The concept of TOPSIS is rational and understandable, and the computation involved is uncomplicated. Moreover, the inherent difficulty of assigning reliable subjective preferences to the criteria is worth noting (Shyur, 2006). In the current study, hence, we utilize a multi-criteria decision-making method to determine the importance weights of evaluation criteria, and TOPSIS method to obtain the performance ratings of the feasible alternatives. Therefore, this approach is employed for four reasons: (i) the logic is rational and comprehensible; (ii) the computation processes are straightforward; (iii) the concept permits the pursuit of best alternatives for each criterion described in a simple mathematical form, and (iv) the importance weights are incorporated into the comparison procedures (Wang and Chang, 2007 and Olson, 2004). The purpose of the current study is to model the marketing strategy decision-making problem as a MCDM problem and provide a five-step decision support framework to carefully assess marketing strategies. Hence, this study utilizes the MCDM method to obtain the relative weight of each criterion – based on the subjective judgments of experts on private hotel management – through the ANP. Given the advantages of the ANP, the current study employs it to offer firm managers and marketing strategists a set of guidelines for designing and implementing competitive marketing strategies through the efficient allocation of resources. In order to rate each marketing strategy, the TOPSIS method was used to rank the marketing strategies in terms of their performances with respect to the marketing resources. Therefore, the five-step model can provide marketing strategists with framework to determine the appropriate marketing strategy more easily. The remainder of this study is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the marketing strategy evaluation framework and reviews the techniques used in the model. Section 3 presents an empirical illustration of private hotels in Taiwan. Finally, the conclusions and findings of the results of the marketing strategies are presented in Section 4.

The purpose of the current study is to propose a framework for marketing strategy for marketing strategists to determine the best marketing strategy. The contribution of the current study lies in the practical implementation of the integration of the ANP and TOPSIS methods that will enable the proposed framework to be utilized by marketing strategists in a real industry for determining the appropriate marketing strategy. The ANP is presented in this study as a valuable and efficient method to support the selection of a marketing strategy by marketing strategists. For integrating the ANP and TOPSIS methods, the owner–manager perspective has been adopted as reflected by the goal approach. And, the current study is focused on selecting the competitive marketing strategy in terms of marketing resources and capabilities. Based on the review of relative literature and a study of its practical aspects, the evaluation framework consists of the following steps: (1) identify the marketing resources for the appropriate marketing strategies; (2) identify the relationship among the marketing resources; (3) calculate the relative weights of the interdependence of the marketing resources through the ANP; (4) aggregate the individual assessments as an overall assessment of each marketing strategy under each marketing resource in order to build the decision-making matrix; and (5) use the TOPSIS to rank the marketing strategy priorities. The results of the current study indicate that the managerial capabilities, customer linking capabilities, and market innovation capabilities in private hotels are the most important marketing resources and capabilities for selecting the competitive marketing strategy. In order to formally achieve its competitive advantage, an organization can deploy resources and capabilities to perfect customer-value activities and services that competitors cannot match. Though few firms can successfully meet the needs of every potential customer or market segment, they can identify areas where to try and compete based on the fit between company strengths and customer needs. By offering a comprehensive framework, private hotels’ practitioners identify critical resources and capabilities of competitive advantage for their hotels. Identical to expectations, the differentiation strategy is the best marketing strategy for private hotels. Confronting a difficult competitive environment, strategy decision makers should recognize their specific advantages as operators of private hotels. Furthermore, decision makers should employ and combine the characteristics of their specific resources and capabilities with local environmental resources so as to emphasize the uniqueness of the private hotel. Specifically, it is important to increase the awareness of specific and limited resources and capabilities and their specific uses in private hotels. Such an increased awareness may increase their ability to focus on specific aspects in their decision-making process, such as promoting managerial implementation and improving service to generate customer satisfaction and achieve reputation in managing customer relationships. For optimal marketing strategy, the current study proposes a marketing strategy decision making process that should also be more operable and practical. An appropriate and simple prioritization method for determining the best marketing strategy would be helpful to firms and marketing strategists. Realizing the effectiveness of business operation is important for practitioners and academics, and this study integrates the ANP method and the TOPSIS method to select an appropriate marketing strategy. Practitioners in service industry can conduct it by themselves. Another avenue for extending this study would be considering the internal and external marketing resources and capabilities of business ventures comprehensively. Moreover, although more research is necessary before drawing firm conclusions about competitive marketing strategy, practitioners can determine the specific criteria of marketing resources and capabilities for industrial specification in the face of a diverse competitive environment. This study provides only a general picture of the private hotels in service industry. There is a need for more researches to be conducted in various industries for promoting the generalizability of the marketing strategy decision making process. The practical implementation of a systematic framework for the determination of a marketing strategy could easily be extended to the decision-making process for other managerial problems. Furthermore, in the practical and complex managerial environment, developing a decision-making support framework could be considered as a critical issue for marketing strategies in the future.