Robust Strategic Planning Employing Scenario Planning and Fuzzy Inference System

Time and uncertainty play crucial roles in the strategic planning process. Organizations are faced with unpredictable changes in new technologies, products and marketplaces but it is noteworthy that they can prepare themselves to face such changes and this readiness results in competitive advantages. This article aims at introducing a method that enables organizations to draw up robust strategies in uncertain situations and leads to formulation of strategies to immunize them against environmental changes. The proposed method has combined ‘scenario planning method’ and ‘fuzzy inference system’ with traditional strategic planning by adopting a new and creative approach. Using the values of uncertain factors in the external environment, this method designs some probable forthcoming scenarios of the organization and then based on fuzzy information described by experts for fuzzy inference systems, defines a robust strategy to deal with the designed scenarios and assists managers in their evaluations of future environment. [Article copies are available for purchase from InfoSci-on-Demand.com]