Fuzzy Group Decision Making in Pursuit of a Competitive Marketing Strategy

To determine marketing strategy may well be the most critical function of management. The pursuit of competitive advantage always requires much deliberate thought and discussion. The current study attempts to develop a marketing strategy evaluation framework based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm to competitive advantage. It tries to identify the most important marketing-specific resources and capabilities using a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) method. This study employs the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method as an analytical tool to determine a unique competitive marketing strategy for a small tourism venture such as a privately owned hotel. The findings indicate that the differentiation strategy is the best competitive marketing strategy for allocating specific and limited resources and capabilities toward sustainable competitive advantage.