Selecting Target Market Using ‘The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)’ Model: TarMAR

Abstract

Nations are working hard to extend their exports; resulting in increasing competitiveness of the world’s economic environment. Therefore, selecting the appropriate target market is crucial. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to identify a proper target market due to the complexity of the problem having many attributes. Based on the 'directional policy' matrix, there are two critical parameters to select a proper target market. These are: ‘target market attractiveness’ and ‘own competitive strength’ in the market. But these two critical parameters have many objective and subjective variables. Some of these parameters can be measures such as target market size, annual growth rate, market share, distance, etc. while some of these are subjective aspects and cannot be measured such as product market conditions, tax regime, financial system, institutions, and infrastructure quality, etc. The difficulty is to compare these subjective parameters. This application aims to use 'The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)' to identify the best set of the target market for a selected product range and optimize export efforts.