Due to globalization and saturated domestic markets, information service firms, upon growing to a certain size, gradually focus their business efforts on reaching global markets. In order to reduce business risk in developing international markets, using the alliance model is a key strategy for information service firms. On the other hand, firms should handle more accurate business information to support their business intelligence (BI) system to make better business decisions. This research uses a hybrid fuzzy-Delphi-AHP approach to propose a more comprehensive framework with specific business elements, and also points out six performance indices for firms to adjust business strategy. Results of this study could have considerable value for the information services industry to develop international markets.
Despite the financial meltdown’s strong impact on the global economy in 2008, Gartner Dataquest research reported that the information service industry worldwide has exhibited a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.43% from 2007 to 2013, and that total production value of the global information service industry market reached US$744 billion in 2007 and was up to US$806 billion in 2008. In Asia, the CAGR is predicted to grow at a rate of 4.45% in the future. Hence, the information service industry is considered a developable sector. However, information service firms responding to saturation in domestic markets and the tendency of internationalization have focused on core competencies and operative strategies to ensure their firm’s survival. The development of Taiwan’s information service industry is one example in which CAGR of production value has 12.11% and export value is up to 10.9% from 2005 to 2009. Apparently, Taiwan’s information service industry in the global market is growing steadily. According to the statistics from the Department of Statistics Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taiwan in 2009, the production value of the information service industry was NT$239 billion (2008, NT$225.8B; 2007, NT$211.2B) and export value was NT$35.0 billion (2008, NT$33.5B; 2007, NT$31.3B). From the standpoint of economic development potential, Taiwan has an important geographic location in Asia’s major economic region, and Taiwan has already developed numerous software systems for the manufacturing industry. Therefore, Taiwan should assess information service sectors having growth potential, and determine the best software service solutions for penetrating the global market.
This research has combined qualitative research and quantitative analysis to propose a majority of points for information service firms planning strategy for expanding international market share by a hybrid fuzzy-Delphi-analytic hierarchy process approach (FDAHP), in which the new framework consists of the six business elements and 13 sub-criteria, including: market segment, including three criteria (cognition of regional culture, cognition of market scale, market’s geographical position), strategic alliance, including two criteria (positioning the cooperative role, the degree of cooperation), service model (integrity of service mechanism, the depth of knowledge of industrial domain), product strategy (product function and quality, competition of product), distribution/channel strategy (distribution channel model, distribution channel efficiency), revenue strategy (revenue model, pricing strategy). This research also suggests six indictors for BI systems for alliances developing global markets, including: growth rate of number in foreign markets (GNM), proportion of partners scale (PS), degree of service standard operation process (DSOP), proportion of alliance product complementarity (PAPC), number of channels (NCC), and growth rate of alliance revenue (GAR). Clearly, the proposed model, focusing on internationalization, business strategy, and alliance aspect, is a new framework in which it is more meticulous and workable structure than former proposed model, combing key elements mentioned previously (such as Chen and Wang, 2010 and Rajala et al., 2003).
All in all, the findings of this research can make a tremendous contribution to the information service industry in planning operative strategies for developing target markets all over the world. In addition, this study verifies the practicability for the proposed model through case study; it appears this model can fit the analytic needs in developing overseas markets for information service firms. However, according to the analysis above, the authors foresee the new technology or service type (such as SaaS, “cloudy” technology) will impact business strategy. Therefore, the researcher needs to take in others related business issue.
For the future, the author hope more sound research will be performed to explore this issue, and suggest a focus on correlative research, including: enhanced evaluation of performance of firms, study on various domains of information services, various benchmark cases-study, and proposals for suitable entry models for different markets.
