Developing A Comprehensive Strategic Plan Based on Swot Matrix, Strategies of, Balanced Scorecard and Qfd Fuzzy

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1 Developing A Comprehensive Strategic Plan Based on Swot Matrix, Strategies of, Balanced Scorecard and Qfd Fuzzy Sedigheh Khorshid *, Reza Ranjbar ** * A scientific Board member of the Faculty of Economy, Management and Administrative Sciences, Semnan University ** M.A in business administration Abstract Pinnacle Research Journals 158 This research has been conducted aiming at developing a comprehensive strategic plan based on the strategies of the organization and Sun Tzu business managementin order to help the organization's management team for implementation of Sun Tzu strategies in Auto-light Industries Organization, in which the techniques of SWOT, BSC and QFD as well as Fuzzy Set Theory have been used and a fuzzy multi-purpose decision-making model has been developed for ranking the strategies of Sun Tzu business management The research results revealed that: a) the organization under study should implement the strategies of ST, WO and WT kinds in order to achieve the best status from the perspective of competitive position in the market, and thus eliminate its internal weaknesses as well as its environmental threats so that it can make use of its strengths for exploitation of the environmental opportunities. B) Based on the balanced scorecard perspective, the organization should focus on the feasibility strategy of exports to the developing countries (SO type) in order to improve its performance; based on the customer viewpoint, it should focus on the strategy of maximizing the threats and increasing the competitive intelligence by strengthening the marketing research systems and awareness of the market (WT type); based on growth and learning perspective, it should focus on the strategy of empowering the research and development unit (ST); creating a strategic attitude in top managers via proper trainings (WT type); and based on the financial viewpoint, it should focus on the strategy of starting the glasswork and carton factory (SO). C). The results of implementation of fuzzy BSQ strategy formulation framework showed that strategies of planning the strategies, estimating and assessing leadership and flexibility and adaptability and types of competitive positions and reasons for failure in order to achieve the organizational goals in the organization under study have achieved the highest score. Keywords:Strategies ofsun Tzu Business Management, SWOT Analysis, Balanced Scorecard, Multi-Purpose Fuzzy Decision-Making 158

2 Pinnacle Research Journals 159 Introduction Organizations compete with one another in order to achieve new customers and maintain their customers and also to create sustainable value for their internal and external customers. While doing so, any organization should set and formulate a strategy taking into consideration the strengths, internal weaknesses, and its environmental threats and opportunities. Strategy refers to an organization' general plan for arranging its resources in order to determine a desirable position and have a successful competition with its rivals. The basis and necessity of strategy lies in discovering a harmonious balance among distinct skills, the organization's capabilities and the external environment where they work. The basic premise of strategy is that a competitor can defeat its rivals, even the big and powerful ones if it can organize itself in a battle commensurate with its capabilities. When an organization is able to do its activities more effectively than its rivals, it will win in the competition match and will appear as the leader of the market (Rao&Krishna 2003). Strategic planning helps an organization to set, implement, monitor and control the strategies of win in a specific period of time. According to William Gelvik, strategic planning is a stream of decisions and measures which leads to arrangement of an effective strategy to help achieve the organizational goals. These decisions and measures determine an organization's rise, fall or survival in order to do strategic planning and develop the strategies of an organization, researchers have used the external factors evaluation matrix, the internal factors evaluation matrix, the competition evaluation matrix, the matrix of threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths, the strategic position and action evaluation matrix, Boston Consulting Group matrix, internal and external matrix, and the main strategy matrix for strategy formulation and analysis(david, F.R. 1998). Among these matrixes, the matrix of threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths is the most popular in analysis of the strategic cases in strategic management process and strategy formulation and development (Dincer,O. 2004) and is usually used as a tool for systematic analysis of an organization's internal-external factors (Stewart et al. 2002). However, this technique has limitations such as providing a list or incomplete quantitative examining of the organization s internal and external factors, lack of quantitative assessment of the importance of each factor in decision-making, difficulty of identifying and determining a factor or factors having the most impact on strategic decision (Pesonen et al. 2005) and inability in evaluating the appropriateness of the decision alternatives based on the internal and external factors of the organization ( Kajanus et al. 2004). Therefore, due to the above-mentioned weaknesses and limitations, this technique cannot support the strategic management process thoroughly (Hilland Wecbrook. 1997). This is why researchers have integrated this technique with other techniques such as Porter's five-force model, hierarchic analysis (Stewart et al. 2002)(Kajanus et al. 2004),network analysis technique (Yuksel anddagdeviren, M. 2007), multi-criteria analysis or sequential criterion, balanced scorecard (Lee, S.F., and Ko, A.S.O. 2000), Wide Impact Analysis (Proctor, T. 2002) fuzzy quantified analysis process (Krijnen. 1992) and fuzzy analysis (Ghazinoory et al. 2007). Although these integrations have so far supported the fuzzy SWOT (Krijnen, H.G. 1992), and strategy formulation and development process analysis, they do not ensure that the strategies have properly been organized and can stand the tests of time. In order to conquer this problem, Ko(Ko. 1998) has developed the strategy formulation framework by combining three techniques of QFD, BSC and SWOT. Many researchers have used this framework for strategy development and formulation in different work positions (Ip, and Koo. 2004). These integrations evaluate the strategies in terms of 159

3 point estimates and cannot model the organization strategists' subjective judgment which is replete with uncertainty, ambiguity and impreciseness. Since strategy development is done for the future of the organization and in order to help achieve the organization's mission and is a kind of decision-making for the future of the organization, the strategists of the organization are required to identify and evaluate the organization's weaknesses and strengths as well as the opportunities and environmental threats that the organization faces and consequently and their judgment is unconsciously subjective, imprecise and insecure. Because fuzziness or ambiguity is a common feature of most of the issues of decision-making, a good decisionmaking model should cover the vagueness and impreciseness in human's judgment and knowledge (Yu, C.S.A. 2001). Therefore, due to the existence of vagueness and impreciseness in the process of strategy development and consequently in formulation of a comprehensive strategic program, it is necessary to treat such a situation with the fuzzy logic. The concept of fuzzy by nature covers human's perception or thinking or reasoning processes. In this paper, it is argued that fuzzy set theory is to a high degree appropriate for evaluation of strategic cases, development of strategies and consequently selection of the organization's strategies. Research Literature Review Pinnacle Research Journals The Concept of Strategy It is not an easy task to present a simple definition of strategy because some of its elements can be generalized and thus applied at any organization, but its other elements are not only dependent on the nature of the organization, but they are also influenced by the beneficiaries, the structure and culture of the organization. By the concept of strategy is meant its content and nature, which has attracted the attention of various writers in recent decades, each one dealing with but one of the dimensions of this relatively complex concept (Hax, and Majluf. 1996). Mintzberg(1994) introduces strategy as a plan or a guiding path, a series of operations in future and the path of movement from a place to another one. He regards strategy as a model which is consistent with behavior over time. According to Thompson and Strickland, an organization's strategy is the management's movement program used for achieving a position in the market, directing its own operation, providing customer satisfaction, competing successfully and achieving the organization's goals. Accordingly, a strategy indicates the management's selected alternatives from among all the options available to him and refers to organizational commitment to the markets, a competitive approach and certain operational methods (Nikomaram et al. 2003). Standler et al. define strategy as a guide for selecting actions. It generally expresses types of products which the organization will make and is a base for competition of the products of an organization with those of its competitors. It should have different sources and capabilities of the organization or develop for successful operation of the organization (Rao, and Krishna. 2003). A precise definition of strategy has been given by Hacks and Majloof (2008). they regard strategy as a multidimensional concept including all the basic activities of the organization and creating a sense of integration, unity, coordination and identity within the organization, and facilitating the creation of necessary changes in the environment. Investigating the most important actions in the strategy domain, they alluded to the different dimensions of it as follows: a). strategy as a tool for expressing the organization determination in the form of the 160

4 expressions of long-term objectives, executive plans and resource allocation natures, b). strategy as determinant of the competitive domain of the organization, c). strategy as a reaction against opportunities and external threats and internal strengths and weaknesses in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, d). strategy as a way of accounting for the managerial duties in organizational levels and fields of work. e)strategy as a coherent and integrative pattern, f). strategy as expressive of strategic intention, g). strategic as a tool for developing the organization's basic competencies, and h). strategy as a tool for investment in tangible and intangible resources in order to develop the capabilitiesfor assurance of sustainable advantage. Pinnacle Research Journals Sun Tzu's Business Management Strategies Sun Tzu's art of war is the most famous work in ancient China and one of the known military texts out of China. Sun Tzu-s main philosophy has been identified in military situations which are coordinate with real business environments (Lee and Ko. 2000). Nowadays, many of scholars and westerns active in business have turned to Sun Tsu's art of war to learn how to succeed in all competitive positions (Sawyer, 1994). It is felt that it is quite possible to use Sun Tzu's business management art in strategic planning in the business world (Ko and Lee, 2000). However, business in the business world can be cruel and may be quite similar to the battlefield. Wee, Lee and Bambang(1995) assert that different businesses have lost their capital, work and job due to poor planning, as thisfactor can lead to a waste of the equipment and the battlers in the battlefield. Investigating Sun Tzu's principles, anyone can achieve a useful knowledge regarding strategic management in the business world. The aim of copying Sun Tzu's principles is to present the principles of organizing for strategy. Organizations are required to keep revising their strategic plans prepare themselves for a battle in a hostile environment in order to conquer their competitors. It is very necessary to identify the methods and ways of using the perceived philosophies of Sun Tzu's art of war in business strategies. Krause (1996) put forward a summary of Sun Tzu's principles for success in business as follows: learn how to fight, show the way, do things correctly, identify the facts, expect the worst, seize the time, destroy the bridges, do the work better, control yourself and let others guess. These form the principles of future success in the competition. Therefore, individuals in organizations should face any kind of competition. These competitions may emanate from organizations or individuals. Win and loss in the battle depends on effective skillful controls of understandings and ideas. In the era of communication and information, competition is mainly informational competition. Those having the most accurate and up-todate informational will win. Information helps the processes of analysis and decision-making. Wisdom for traditional competition can also be used for competition in information. Accordingly, based on the strategies of Wee, Lee and Bambang(1995) and Krause (1996), the competitive strategies of business management were innovated. These thirteen strategic criteria of business management form the base of performance evaluation of business excellence through the use of QFD method. These thirteen strategies have been summarized in Table (1). These strategies are very helpful and appropriate for predicting the competitions of the world's economy and business battles among the countries, especially for evaluating the strategies of business management Lee and Ko 2000). 161

5 Table 1: Thirteen Strategies Of Sun Tzu's Business Management (Ku & Lee, 2000; Lee And Ku, 2000) Sun Tzu's thirteen books Competitive strategies 1. planning 2. competitive activities 3. competitive strategies 4. side-taking 5. Opportunity and timing 6. control 7. Management of direct conflicts 8. flexibility 9. maneuvering 10. types of competitive positions and reasons for failure 11. the conditions of competition and strategies of aggression 12. reputation damage 13. collecting information 1. planning the strategies, estimates and leadership 2. resources and competitive activities 3. competitive strategies and competitive wisdom 4. side-taking and ultimate goal, estimating the weaknesses and strengths 5. management's opportunity, timing and structure 6. controlling the market and the conditions 7. management of conflicts and avoidance of struggles 8. flexibility and adaptability 9. observation and maneuvering 10. competitive positions and reasons for failure 11. the conditions of competition and the strategy of aggression, coalition and prospect 12. destruction and decision 13. awareness and decision Pinnacle Research Journals SWOT Matrix SWOT matrix is considered in the preliminary stages of strategic decision-making and as an introduction to strategic planning and management (Arslan, O., and Er, I.D. 2008), and it can provide a good base for successful strategy formulation if used correctly (Kajanus et al 2004). The main goal of SWOT matrix is to achieve decision support of strategy selection in strategic planning process. It involves expressing the organizational goals and identifying the intra-and inter-organizational factors which are desirable or undesirable for achievement of those goals (Arslan, O., and Er, I.D. 2008). SWOT analysis seeks to maximize the opportunities, minimize external threats, and turn the weaknesses into strengths, which achieves the advantage of opportunities along with minimization of the internal weaknesses and external threats (Saaty, R.W. 1987). The advantage of SWOT analysis lies in its attempt to relate the organizational internal factors and the external ones in order to motivate new strategies. By using SWOT matrix and identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, any organization can formulate its strategies based on them. The strengths and weaknesses of organizations are identified by evaluation of their internal environment, and their strengths and weaknesses by evaluation of their external environment (Dyson, R.G. 2004). The information obtained by SWOT analysis has been systematically shown in a matrix (graph 1) (Ulgenand Mirze. 2004). Different combinations of four strategic factors of matrix help determine four types of strategy for the organization's long-term progress (David, F.R. 1998): a). Aggressive strategies (SO), by which organizations can invest on new environmental opportunities using their maximum strength, b). conservative strategies (WO), by which an organization meets its weaknesses through maximum use of its strength, c). competitive strategies (ST), by which an organization tries to minimize or eliminate the environmental threats via maximum use of its strengths, and d). defensive strategies, by which an organization tries to minimize its weaknesses on the one hand, and avoid the environmental threats on the other. 162

6 4. Balanced Scorecard Kaplan &Norton (1996) developed balanced scorecard by using a combination of indicators in four domains of finance, customers, business internal processes and growth and learning in order to coordinate the individual, organizational and inter-department initiatives. They argued that managers should not only focus on financial indicators when making decisions, they should also consider the non-financial criteria. Balanced scorecard can act as a means of transferring the long-term strategic initiatives to the business units and achieving long-term financial success (Davis and Albright. 2004). It can also translate and convert an organization's mission and strategies into a comprehensive set of performance items and provide a framework for translating and transferring the organization's strategies into performance goals and consequently performance assessment and measurement (Kaplan and Norton. 1992). Therefore, development of balanced scorecard in a system can support four stages of strategic management process (Pienaar and Penzhorn 2000): a). expressing and interpreting the prospect and strategies, b). creating relations and transferring the strategies to the entire organization. If we desire success of the strategies of an organization and realization of its important goals, balanced scoring can be used in the entire organization as a means of communicating and transferring the strategies by finding the indicators, c). planning and determining the goals can be used as a basis for business planning, which realizes by quantifying the long-term results. Then the short-term goals are formulated and mechanisms should be identified for achieving these results so that an organization can coordinate the organizational plans with the financial resources and other resources, d). feedback and learning provides a feedback loop considered by Kaplan and Norton as the newest and most important aspect of the whole process of balanced score management. Internal Factors Graph 1: Swot Matrix Strengths Weaknesses Internal factors Opportunities Threats Aggressive strategies (SO) Competitive strategies (ST) Conservative strategies (WO) Defensive strategies (WT) Pinnacle Research Journals 163 The primary model of balanced scorecard involves four perspectives that characterize three beneficiary groups (shareholders, customers and employees) in any organization (Lee 2008). The financial perspective includes traditional financial criteria which are related to profitability. They determine whether applying and perceiving strategy will help improve the organization's economic results or not (Michalska, J 2005). The customer perspective focuses on providing the customers' needs. According to this viewpoint, customers' management determines the goal and sectors of the market for the operational units and controls and examines the performance of the operational units in the target markets. The internal processes perspective focuses on reforming and improving the organizational internal processes in order to create further value for customers and consequently for employees and shareholders and concentrates on the innovation of process and operation for providing customer satisfaction and financial goal. Growth and learning perspective shows a structure that makes possible the long-term growth and development of an organization (Kaplan and 163

7 Norton, 1996). The primary goal of this viewpoint is to provide a base for achievement of the goals of the other three approaches and create the organization's long-term growth and improvement by individuals, systems and organizational methods. In general, balanced scorecard refers to the causal relations among the strategies as well as the approaches that make strategy realization possible and its goal is to translate the prospect and strategies of the organization into the goals in four perspectives of finance, customer, business internal processes and growth and learning (Fernandes et al 2006). Graph (2) shows the relation between prospect and strategy of the organization with four views of balanced scorecard. Customer: for realization of the prospect, how should we appear in the customers' views? Financial: in order to achieve financial success, how should we supply shareholders' satisfaction? Prospect and strategy Learning and growth: in order to achieve the prospect of the organization, how should we use our capabilities for development and superiority? The internal process of business: in order to achieve customers and shareholders' satisfaction, in which process of business should we become motaali? )Graph 2: The Framework of Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan And Norton, 1996 Pinnacle Research Journals Quality of fuzzy development (QFD) QFD is a powerful technique which enables organizations to predict and prioritize their customers' needs in their entirety and considers them in the products and services provided for final users (Wassermann, G.S 1993), and helps organizations in effective use of other technical tools to support and complement them and pose prioritized subjects (Lee and Ko, 2000). The practical goal of QFD is to merge the customers' preferences with different stages of the product development cycle / service for a new product / or promoting the quality of the new product via marketing surveys and interviews in order to reach a quality needed by customers (Buyukozkan et al. 2007) The basis of QFD is the matrix of House of Quality (HOQ) which is composed of information about the whats (vertical axis) and the hows (horizontal axis) and integration of these pieces of information (the relations between the whats and hows). The whats are the data that identify the customers' needs, whereas hows are data which describe solutions for customers' feedback (Tang at al. 2002).In traditional quality performance development, these relations are often examined in the form of crisp variables or linguistic scales (Hauser and Clausing, 1988). For instance, the strength of a relation regarding the effect of "a how feature" on " a performance feature of what" is evaluated and expressed by a scale system like or , which indicate linguistic descriptions of "poor", "average" and "strong" respectively. However, in actual world, these evaluations are vague and imprecise. Vagueness and impreciseness (fuzziness) basically emanate from a reality, of what things have tendency towards being subjective, qualitative and non-technical and need to be translated in the form of the hows, which should be translated by more quantitative and technical terms and expressions (Clausing, 1994) and are usually evaluated by subjective or fuzzy judgments due to lack of information about the effect of the hows on the whats(chen and Weng 2006). 164

8 Fuzzy logic can model the vagueness in the data or relations in a formal way. In QFD, the symbols that represent the relations between the whats and hows (strong, average, weak) and are usually used to fill the matrix of relations and make the house of quality can be represented in the form of linguistic words which in turn can be translated and transferred into fuzzy numbers (triangular fuzzy numbers / trapezoidal fuzzy numbers). 6. Strategy Formulation Framework BSQ Strategy formulation framework has been developed by combination of QFD, SWOD and BSC techniques and is a realistic strategy for scholars and consultants of management (Ko, L.C. 1998). This combination has been done in two stages: a- integration of SWOT analysis with balanced scorecard. Keplan and Norton (1992) have asserted that he first step for realization of balanced scorecard is to express and account for the prospect and strategies of the organization. The key indicators of performance can be developed via SWOT analysis which provides a more systematic and holistic approach to make balanced scorecard. The advantage of using SWOT analysis is that it clearly analyzes and combines the internal and external factors of the business environment and develops a set of key indicators of performance which can be applied in four approaches of balanced scorecard. Therefore, SWOT analysis is a more organized approach for determining the base of BSC instead of simple identification of key performance indicators through unconscious and instinctive feelings or thorough brainstorming (Ko and Lee 2000). b- Integration of balanced scorecard with QFD. Balanced scorecard acts as a powerful means of defining thewhats within QFD but it does not show the hows(maddux et al. 1991). Therefore, organizations can use QFD as a tool for strategic planning (Maddux et al. 1991). By integration of balanced scorecard and QFD, a holistic strategic management system will be developed. Lee & Ku (2003) have used "Sun Tzu's art of war" as the strategies of business management in order to define thehows of QFD. The business management strategies are considered a criterion for evaluating the business management strategies using QFD which will help the top managers to identify prioritize and reform their organization's positions (Lee & Ku 2003). Then the relations between the whats and hows are studied in the body of QFD matrix. Pinnacle Research Journals 165 Case Study of Strategy Formulation Framework Bsq In this part, the stages of implementation of strategy formulation framework (BSQ) are described in the Autolight Industries Organization. This organization has the mission of producing the best high-quality and low-price products through the use of modern technologies, trying to motivate the employees for further growth and development in order to create a work environment, and trying to achieve the predetermined goals and very high productivity. The Modern Autolight Industries Organizationfollows the following long-term goals: a-getting the first rank in the market from the perspective of the sales volume, b- using the modern technologies in order to produce high-quality and low-price goods, c- increasing customer satisfaction by improving the quality of the goods and services as well as after-sales service, d- increasing productivity, reducing the intra-organizational wastes and moving towards contiguous improvement, e- employing, training, motivating and retaining the highexpertise human resources, and f- trying to foster the community's growth and development, increase employment and protecting the environment. In the following, the implementation 165

9 process of strategy formulation framework (BSQ) in Modern Autolight Industries Organizationwill be described. Pinnacle Research Journals The Wide Study of theorganization and its surrounding environment:development of an organization's strategies using SWOT matrix involves the wide study of the organization and its environment from the viewpoint of its strengths and weaknesses in domains of finance and accounting, human resources, marketing and sales, production and operation, research and development, information technology and organization management and information collection on the one hand, and the study and identification of the political-legal and governmental, socio-cultural, economic, ecological and demographic environment and information collection regarding the threat-and opportunity-creating factors and analysis of their effects on the organization's success on the other. In this research, the information related to intra-organizational factors and the environmental factors affecting the organization's activity and success has been collected and analyzed by two teams. These two teams include experts with at least five years of work experience in the organization who were working in the areas of finance, marketing and sales, staffing and recruiting, production, public relations, research and development and information technology development. The first team were responsible for identifying the intra-organizational factors (the organization's strengths and weaknesses in any field of endeavor), and analysis of the effects of the domains on one another, and the second team were responsible for identifying the inter-organizational factors (threats and environmental factors) affecting the domains, and consequently the success of the entire organization. These two teams identified the intra-and interorganizational factors affecting the org's success via interaction with each other and use of the knowledge of the other personnel of the organization as well as through examining the documents available in the organization. The result of the studies of these two teams was given to the organizations strategic team. This team included the directing manager and the managers of financial, marketing and sales, staffing and recruiting, production, research and development, information technology and public relations domains who played an important role in the organization's decision-makings and had a work experience of between five and ten years in their own working fields as well as in the revision and formulation of the organization's strategic document. The technique of Critical Factors of Success (CFS) has been used in order to extract the strategic factors (the organization's most important weaknesses, opportunities, and environmental threats). This technique has been implemented in two stages. In the first stage, a checklist of the intra- and inter-organizational factors was given to the members of the strategic team and attempts were made to make clear the nature of the strengths and weaknesses of the inter-organizational factors as well as the threats and opportunities of the inter-organizational and environmental factors from their perspective through interviews and face-to-face dialogues. They were also asked in this stage to mention any weakness or strength factor or threat and environmental opportunities that spring up in their mind and have not been included in the checklist. In the second stage, a checklist of the organization's weaknesses and strengths as well as a checklist of the threats and the environmental opportunities which had been identified in the first stage were prepared and the result was given to the members of the strategic team. Then they were asked to score the weakness and strength factors as well as the threat and environmental opportunities factors between 1 and 9 166

10 based on their degree of influence on the organization. After collecting the checklist of the organization's weaknesses and strengths, and threat and environmental opportunities, the scores of the above factors were measured by their mean and the factors with the degree of significance below eight were eliminated from the checklist. In the third stage, the factors extracted from the second stage were given to the managers in order to ask for their final ideas regarding the organization's weaknesses and strengths, and threat and environmental opportunities. The factors identified at this stage have been shown in graph (3) as the strategic factors (the organization's weaknesses and strengths, and environmental threats) in SWOT matrix. 2. Developing the Organization Strategies via SWOT Analysis: in this stage, the members of the third team (the managers of the different sectors of the organization) developed the strategies of the organization by two-by-two correspondence of the strengths and opportunities, strengths and threats, weaknesses and strengths, weaknesses and threats in several meetings, taking into account the mission and long-term goals of the organization and based on the information obtained from the previous stages. The result of this stage has been shown in graph (3). 3. Translation of the developed strategies as the key indicators of performance of balanced scorecard perspectives: As Keplan& Norton [30] have confessed, the first step in actual implementation of balanced scorecard is to express the prospect and strategies of the organization. Through implementation of SWOT, a set of significant strategies are developed which are known as the first stage of actual implementation of balanced scorecard. In this stage, the strategies developed by the organization's strategic team members are defined and accounted for as the key performance indicators of balanced scorecard in terms of their nature and through discussions held among the organization's strategic team members. The results have been shown in cells 1, 2, 3, and 4 in graph (3). Pinnacle Research Journals

11 Pinnacle Research Journals 168 Threats (T) -changes of people's habits of shopping and wants -taxation rules and price -high rate of inflation -changes of oil's price -Iran's joining to WTO -Iran's economic sanction -exchange rate changes -Iran's inappropriate political position in the world -changes of technology, equipment and computer production (2) ST strategies - Feasibility of exports to the developing countries for removing thorough reliance on the internal markets (internal processes) -Increasing automation and buying modern technologies for increasing the export power (growth and learning)- (4) WT strategies -Minimizing the threats and maximizing competitive intelligence by strengthening the marketing research systems and awareness of the market (customer) -Improving productivity in the whole system and concentrating on reduction of the surplus costs in the organization's whole field of endeavor (financial) -Creating a strategic attitude in the top managers via appropriate training (growth and learning) -Empowerment of the research and development unit in order to be able to predict the technological changes (growth and learning) Opportunities (O) -young population of the country -appropriate level of education in the community -high rate of unemployment -privatization policy -Iran's relation with the neighboring and developing countries -development of e-commerce -growth of information technology (1) SO strategies -Feasibility of exports to the developing countries (internal processes( - Creating variety in production line (growth and learning)- -Starting glasswork and carton factory (financial) -Cooperation with larger organizations in production of polymer parts (financial) (3) WO strategies -Taking measures to increase the efficiency of the comprehensive operational information systems (internal processes) -Heightening the employees' spirit by involving them in decision-making (growth and learning) -Creation and development of supply chain and efficient and effective distribution using modern ICT (customer) Graph 3: Swot Matrix and Connecting The Organizational Strategic Goals with the Viewpoints of Balanced Scorecard 4. Composing the House of Quality Matrix: In this stage, the house of quality matrix is composed. Twelve strategic goals extracted from stage (2-4) are defined as the whats and Sun Tzu's strategies are defined as hows of house of quality matrix. In the previous literature Sun Tzu's strategies have been used as hows of house of quality matrix, and through relating Sun Tzu's strategies with the developed strategies of the organization, the degree of significance of 168 Strengths (S) - production technology level - high capacity of production - high share of the organization market - validity in the community and customers' view - high quality of fist-class products -- the ability to influence the decision-making bodies - access to up-to-date information - manufacturing and supply of new products Weaknesses (W) -poor and inappropriate control of the costs -Low productivity and inappropriate control of the production process -Suboptimal use of productive capacity -Lack of marketing research -Low efficiency of the distribution system -Low employee job satisfaction -Inappropriate status of the facilities And -Low efficiency of the integrated comprehensive operational information systemsof MIS

12 the organization's strategies has been examined and the prioritized (Ko and Lee 2000)(Wee et al 1995). Development of The Fuzzy Qualitative Decision Support Model of Strategic Planning The main goal in the strategic planning process is to achieve the decision support which is applied in strategy selection. In the theoretical study of decision, a decision is considered as a choice between two or more alternatives. In general, logical decision-makers choose an alternative which is determined based on the existing information about the decision alternatives and which maximizes favorableness. Thus, in decision support, choice is made based on the situation of decision, the substitutive alternatives, and their consequences. In order to support the strategy selection process, many researchers have tried to integrate the multi-criteria models of decision-making within the strategic planning process and strategy selection. In line with the previous studies, the present research seeks to develop a decision support model by use of the multi-criteria fuzzy models of decision-making (fuzzy AHP, fuzzy TOPSIS, fuzzy SAW and multi-purpose fuzzy planning model) in order to support the process of strategy selection and development in Autolight Industries Organization, and the algorithm of this model is described as follows. 1. Measuring the Weights of SWOT Factors and their Indicators Using Fuzzy Hierarchic Analysis Technique: When decision-makers lack enough information for doing the decision analysis and their judgment is subjective and uncertain, the fuzzy approach is a very helpful and efficient approach in dealing with the impreciseness or indefiniteness hidden in the decision-makers' information. In such cases, linguistic words (table 2) are used in order to gain the experts' judgment in the process of evaluating and determining the significance degrees of SWOT factors and their indicators. Via a questionnaire with the hierarchic analysis format, the members of the organization's strategic team were asked to express their judgment regarding the significance degree of SWOT factors and their indicators using the linguistic words "extraordinarily important", "between very important and extraordinarily important", "very important", "between important and very important", "important", "between relatively important and important", "relatively important", "between having the same importance and relatively important" and "with the same importance". Pinnacle Research Journals

13 Inverse matrixes fuzzy numbers (1.3, 1.4, 1.5) (1.2, 1.3, 1.4) (1, 1.2, 1.3) (1, 1, 1) Triangular fuzzy numbers (5, 4, 3) )(4, 3, 2) )(3, 2, 1) (1, 1, 1) Linguistic variables From relatively important to important Relatively important From having the same importance to relatively important The same importance Inverse matrixes fuzzy numbers (1.9, 1.9, 1.9) (1.7, 1.8, )1.9) (1.6, 1.7, 1.8) (1.5, 1.6, 1.7)) (1.4, 1.5, 1.6) Triangular fuzzy numbers (9, 9, 9) (7, 8, 9) (6, 7, 8) (5, 6, 7)( (4, 5, 6) Linguistic variables Extraordinarily important From very important to extraordinarily important Very important From important to very important important TABLE 2: SAATI'S Linguistic Scale and its Implementation for Fuzzy Judgments in Hierarchic Analysis (Lee Et Al. 2008) Pinnacle Research Journals 170 After getting information from the members of the organization's strategic team, paired comparison matrices were composed and the linguistic words were converted into their corresponding triangular fuzzy numbers (table 2). When several individuals are involved in the process of evaluation, their fuzzy judgments should be aggregated so that a group fuzzy judgment matrix is composed. There are different ways of aggregating the experts' judgments, but Saati(1980)recommends the geometric mean method (equation) for better results. (1) K ~ g A a~ k 1/ K i ( ij ), k 1,2,..., K; i 1,2,... m k 1 g A ~ i : The decision-making group's fuzzy judgment and preference, and K: the number of the decision-makers. j represents the factors in paired comparison matrix. Based on group fuzzy judgment matrix, the fuzzy weights of the strategic factors and their indicators are measured. The concept of normalization and weighted averageis used in order to measure the fuzzy weights and determine the priorities. Thus, the normalization operation is first done on group fuzzy judgment matrices. For such normalization, Formula 2 based on division of the fuzzy numbers is used. Then, weighted average is made of any row of paired comparison matrix. (2) ~ N( A g i ~ ) A After measuring the weights and priorities of SWOT factors and their indicators, the Universalweights of SWOT factors indicators are measured using Formula (3). The results have been shown in table (3). (3) g L L wswot Sub factors wswot factor * wswot Sub factors 170 g i m i 1 ~ A g i

14 Table 3: Universal Final And Fuzzy Weights Of Indicators Of Swot Factors 2. Measuring the Fuzzy Weights of the Organizational strategic goalsusing the SAW Technique: Via a questionnaire with the alternatives of "extremely much", "very much", "much", "average", "little", "very little" and "extremely little", the members of the organization's strategic team was asked to determine the performance value of the organizational strategic goals taking the indicators of SWOT factors into consideration. After obtaining the information and converting the qualitative and linguistic words into their corresponding triangular fuzzy numbers (table 4), the matrix of fuzzy judgment of strategic goals is Triangular fuzzy numbers (0.5, 0.375, 0.25) (0.375, 0.25, 0.125) (0.25, 0.125, 0.0) Linguistic variables Little, of little importance Very little, very unimportant Extremely little, extremely unimportant composed. After aggregating the participants' fuzzy judgments in the evaluation process through arithmetic mean, the fuzzy score of the strategic goals is calculated using formula (4) (Wu et al. 2009) Table 4: Linguistic Scale for Determining the Performance Value of The Organizational Strategic Goals nm g Score( Strategyq ) wswot Sub Factors * Strategyiq, q 1,2,..., Q; i 1,2,..., m i 1 Triangular fuzzy numbers (1, 0.875, 0.75) (0.875, 0.75, 0.625) (0.75, 0.625, 0.5) (0.625, 0.5, 0.375) Linguistic variables Extremely much, extremely important Very much, very important Much, important Average q represents the organizational strategic goals and j represents the indicators of SWOT factors. The results have been shown in table (5). )4( Pinnacle Research Journals 171 Final weights Table 5: Score of The Final and Fuzzy Weights of Strategic Goals Fuzzy weights (1, 0.62, 0.33) (1, 0.65, 0.35) (1, 0.67, 0.37) (1, 0.60, 0.31) (0.90, 0.52, 0.26) (0.97, 0.58, 0.30) (1, 0.61, 0.32) (0.96, 0.57, 0.29) (1, 0.65, 0.35) (1, 0.65, 0.35) (0.54, 0.94, 0.28) (1, 0.61, 0.32) Organization's strategies (strategic goals) Starting glasswork and carton factory empowering the research and development unit feasibility of exports to developing countries Cooperation with larger organizations in production of polymer pieces Taking measures to increase the efficiency of the comprehensive operational information systems Heightening the employees' spirit by involving them in decisionmaking Creation and development of supply chain and efficient and effective distribution using modern ICT Increasing automation and buying modern technologies for increasing the export power Minimizing the threats and maximizing competitive intelligence by strengthening the marketing research systems and awareness of the market Creating a strategic attitude in the top managers via appropriate training Creating variety in production line Improving productivity in the whole system and concentrating on reduction of the surplus costs in the organization's whole field of endeavor 171

15 3. Accounting the Relations between "the whats' and "hows" and the correlation between "hows" in House of Quality Matrix: In order to account for the relations between the whats and hows as well as the correlation between hows, first the implementation of house of quality matrix was taught to the organization's strategic team members. Then they were asked to express the relations between Sun Tzu's strategies and the organization's developed strategies as well as the correlation between Sun Tzu's strategies with one another using the linguistic words "the weakest", "weak", "relatively weak", "average", "relatively strong", "strong", and "the strongest". Since their evaluation has been in the form of linguistic words and fuzzy logic can model human's linguistic discourse better than Bolin's classical logic, their linguistic evaluation is converted into their corresponding triangular fuzzy numbers. (Table 6). The managers' evaluative information isaggregated via their arithmetic mean and anaggregate house of quality matrix is obtained. Table 6: Linguistic Scale for Evaluation of The Relation between The The Whats and Hows; and Correlation between Sun Tzu Strategies with One Another in Quality House Matrix Triangular fuzzy numbers (0.1, 0, 0) (0.3, 0.1, 0) (0.5, 0.3, 0.1) (0.7, 0.5, 0.3) (0.9, 0.7, 0.5) (0.1, 0.6, 0.7) (1, 1, 0.9) Linguistic scale showing the relation's strength The weakest Weak Relatively weak Average Relatively strong Strong The strongest 4.Measuring the Weights of the Relations between Sun Tsu's Strategies and the Organizational strategic goals: The Weights of the relations between Sun Tzu's strategies and the organizational strategic goals were calculated at two stages as follows: a- the fuzzy significance degree of Sun Tzu's strategies was measured via formula (5). Pinnacle Research Journals 172 (5) RI j Q q 1 Score( Strategy ) R 172 k qj, j 1,2,..., n j represents Sun Tzu's strategies. RI j represents the fuzzy significance of Sun Tzu's strategies. R kj represents the expert's linguistic and fuzzy judgment on the relation between Sun Tzu's strategies and the organizational strategic goals. B- The final fuzzy score of Sun Tzu's strategies ( W ~ ) is calculated via formula (6) considering the correlation between Sun Tzu's strategies [39]. (6) j W ~ j RI j j j T jj RI j

16 T jj represents the fuzzy degree of correlation between Sun Tzu's strategies and RI j is the fuzzy significance degree of Sun Tzu's strategies having been obtained using formula (5). The results of this stage of calculations have been shown in table (7).Te fuzzy sore obtained at this stage is used for formulating the function of strategic goals realization (the values of Sun Tzu's strategies in the multi-purpose ideal planning model). Since the output of the decision support techniques in part 4 for measuring the weights of the indicators of SWOT factors, the organizational strategic goals and Sun Tzu's strategies are in the form of fuzzy values, these outputs should be defuzzied for the use of them in the strategic decision-makings of the organization. Therefore, in order to defuzzy a triangular fuzzy number m=(l,m,u) and consequently gain knowledge from the obtained information, formula (7) is used. The results of defuzzying have been shown in table (7). (7) [( U L) ( M L)] dyfuzzy( m ~ ) L 3 Research Findings The results obtained from implementation of the fuzzy decision support quantitative model of strategic planning shows that: a- the factors of opportunities and threats among the SWOT factors have respectively received the most (44%) and the least (16%) degree of significance, whereas the factors of strengths and weaknesses have had relatively homogeneous degrees of significance (Table 3). This result shows that the Autolight Indicators Organization can make the most use of its strengths by developing the SO, and WO strategies in order to invest on the opportunities and can neutralize the environmental threats via maximum use of the environmental opportunities or change them into new environmental opportunities, b-the most degrees of significance have gone to the indicators of high share of organization market and validity in the community and customers' view among the strength factors; the indicators of lack of marketing research and inappropriate status of the facilities and equipment of research and development among the weakness factors; the index of high rate of unemployment among the opportunity factors; and the indicators of the high rate of inflation, Iran's inappropriate political position in the world and changes of the oil's price among the threat factors. Pinnacle Research Journals 173 Table 7: The Score of The Final and Fuzzy Weights of Sun Tzu Strategies Final score Fuzzy score Sun Tzu Strategies 0.49 (0.61, 0.49, 0.36) Competitive resources and activities 0.47 (0.59, 0.47, 0.35) Maneuvering- observing 0.5 (0.614, 0.5, 0.37)( Intelligence collection- awareness and information 0.67 (0.79, 0.67, 0.55) Opportunity, timing and structure of management 0.53 (0.65, 0.53, 0.41) Control of the market's position and atmosphere 0.72 (0.84, 0.72, 0.60) flexibility and adaptability 0.60 (0.48, 0.60, 0.73) direct management of conflicts, and avoidance of struggles and quarrels 0.64 (0.78, 0.64, 0.50) Competitive strategies and competitive wisdom 0.70 (0.82, 0.70, 0.57) types of competitive positions and reasons for failure 0.65 (0.77, 0.65, 0.52) the conditions of competition and the strategy of aggression, coalition and prospect 0.60 (0.73, 0.6, 0.45) Damage of reputation and decision 0.68 (0.80, 0.69, 0.57) side-taking and ultimate goal, estimating the weaknesses and strengths 0.80 (0.90, 0.81, 0.69) planning the strategies, estimates and leadership 173

17 However, the scores of the other strategies have been placed in the range of (Table 7). It can be inferred from this result that the organization under study should apply the strategies of ST, WO and WT types in order to reach the best status from the perspective of competitive position in the market and thus remove its internal weaknesses as well as its environmental threats so that it can make use of its strengths to deploy its environmental opportunities. Based on the balanced scorecard perspective, the organization should focus on the feasibility strategy of exports to the developing countries (SO type) with the most score (72%) in order to improve its performance; based on the customer viewpoint, it should focus on the strategy of maximizing the threats and increasing the competitive intelligence by strengthening the marketing research systems and awareness of the market (WT type); based on growth and learning perspective, it should focus on the strategy of empowering the research and development unit (ST); creating a strategic attitude in top managers via proper trainings (WT type); and based on the financial viewpoint, it should focus on the strategy of starting the glasswork and carton factory (SO). Furthermore, the preference scores of the strategic goals show that the organization under study should focus and invest on improvement of the organization's internal processes, promoting growth and learning promoting and providing customer satisfaction in order to achieve a higher position in the financial indicators. The results obtained from implementation of strategy formulation framework (BSQ) based on equations 6 and 7 showed (table 7) that among Sun Tzu's strategies, the strategy of strategies planning, leadership's estimate and evaluation (0.80) flexibility and adaptability (0.70), types of competitive positions and failure reasons (0.70), side-taking and determining the high goals, estimating and evaluating the weaknesses and strengths (0.68), management's opportunity, timing and structure (0.67), competitive conditions and the aggression-coalition strategy and prospect (0.65), competitive strategies and competitive wisdom (0.640, direct management of conflicts, conflict management and avoidance of struggles and quarrels (0.60), equal to or greater than 0.60, but the other strategies have scored less than Pinnacle Research Journals 174 Conclusion In today's competitive and changing business environment, organizations need strategic planning in order to achieve competitive position more than before. They should keep revising the strategic plans and determine their position in comparison with their competitors in the competitive markets. For this purpose, understanding and perceiving Sun Tzu's strategies can create useful knowledge for the organizations' strategists towards strategic management in the business world. These strategists can be the foundations of the future's architecture of business management strategies through the use of QFD technique, which will help the top managers to identify, prioritize and reform their positions. The success and effectiveness of strategic managers and planning depends on development and formulation of efficient strategies, which in turn requires decision support tools and decision support models. Although the strategic management texts provide a set of tools for analyzing the strategic position and consequently the formulation of a set of strategies for an organization, these tools do not provide adequate insight and knowledge concerning the weaknesses and strengths of the organization as well as the opportunities and environmental 174

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