Structuring and Ranking the Strategic Objectives Using the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Approach and BORDA-OWA Method

Objective Long-term strategic planning is necessary if an organization intends to go beyond its customers’ expectations and remain competitive. A balanced scorecard is considered as a mere scorecard without a strategic plan. Therefore, it will only report the important measures not a clear understanding of leading the whole organization towards success. Strategic planning as the rationale behind balanced scorecards can clarify the strategies in an organization, but it cannot show an optimal path towards success in that organization. Balanced scorecard system has tried to obviate such problem through strategic orientations, yet it has never provided a specific approach to determine success in an organization. It is also noteworthy that strategic planning helps managers create a comprehensive image of the strategies, but it does not consider the effectiveness of the relationships and the classification of those relationships. Therefore, the present study aims at proposing a systematic approach in order to draw a strategic plan and to rank the practical objectives of such plans.   Methodology Alpha company, producing tires and tubes, has been considered as the target company for this research. There are around 600 employees in this company among which around 30 are managers, directors, supervisors or executive managers. Documents, observation, interview and questionnaire are the data collection instrument used in the present study. In the first questionnaire, used in fuzzy cognitive approach, 30 experts will respond to some questions regarding the organization strategic objectives on a scale of 0 to 100. The second questionnaire used in statistical approach, the 30 experts will rate the extracted relationship from 0 to 50 to determine the relationship between the objectives. The third questionnaire, considers the previous data as the input for BORDA-OWA approach, 6 executive directors rate the objectives on a scale of 0 to 100 according to their expertise.   Findings Based on the proposed methodology, 4 main steps were taken in this study. The extracted strategic objectives through fuzzy cognitive approach were categorized and the key relationships were discovered. The experts were asked to select the key relationships and to evaluate them. The proposed relationships were analyzed based on statistical tests and were all approved except for two relationships. Strategic map was drawn based on the confirmed relationships. Then, executive directors analyzed and ranked the strategic objectives of the plan. Because of the effects of the directors’ personal beliefs, these objectives were ranked differently by the executive directors. The results showed that improvement in the tire profitable income, improvement in tire and tube sale and development of foreign market were ranked highest by the directors. Regarding the effectiveness on strategic objectives, promoting bicycle and tire products, evolution and distinction in after-sale-services and promoting employees’ motivation were ranked the highest respectively. Regarding the effects by the strategic objectives, developing foreign market, increasing tire export rate, increasing product sale and developing national market and agricultural instruments were ranked the highest accordingly.   Conclusion Based on the results of the study, some promotion projects such as “formation of a market evaluator team”, “formation of a research and development team”, “optimizing production line”, “reviewing the salary and payment system” and “formation of suggestion centers” were proposed to the company managers. The main focus of the managers might be toward developing foreign market and increasing export rate, developing local market and agricultural instruments and improving product sales. In fact, the results indicate that developing local and foreign markets are the most important objectives and there is a strong need to “market evaluation” and “research and development” teams. The proposed methodology offers the managers a comprehensive and accurate idea in order to make decision on the executive priorities within their organization.