Hybridising human judgment, AHP, simulation and a fuzzy expert system for strategy formulation under uncertainty

A hybrid approach that combines human judgment, analytic hierarch process (AHP), simulation and a fuzzy expert system for formulating marketing strategies and related Internet strategies is proposed and evaluated in the paper. Within this approach, AHP is utilised to perform pairwise comparisons and assist the decision-maker to determine the relative importance of relevant factors affecting strategic decision-making. Monte Carlo simulation is employed to estimate the scores for the strategic factors or variables on the basis of human judgmental inputs and the triangular probability distribution. The fuzzy expert system is applied to fuzzify the aggregated inputs using trapezoidal membership functions, undertake approximate reasoning and generate strategic recommendations with certain degree of confidence. These techniques and technologies are hybridised by using an intercommunication job-sharing method with human judgment incorporated. Empirical evaluation findings from six managers indicate that the hybrid approach is efficient and effective in supporting and improving both the process and the outcomes of strategy formulation. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.