Emerging economies present significant growth opportunities for the medical device sector, yet these markets remain underexplored and face substantial financial, regulatory, and operational challenges. This study examines the key strategic factors for long-term business sustainability in untapped medical device markets in emerging economies, focusing on the prosthetics and orthotics industry within Pakistan’s economic and healthcare landscape. Using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process–based multi-criteria decision-making framework, business growth drivers were evaluated and ranked based on expert opinions from the healthcare and business sectors, providing a comprehensive analysis of criteria. The findings identify finance as the most critical factor, followed by research and development and strategic supply chain management, highlighting the importance of strong financial planning, sustained innovation investment, and efficient supply chain integration for sustainable business growth. The analysis further indicates that supportive policy measures, regulatory improvements, and investment incentives are also essential for enhancing market scalability and strengthening enterprise development in emerging economies. The findings offer actionable insights for businesses, policymakers, and investors seeking to expand medical device enterprises in underserved markets. By integrating multi-criteria decision-making methodologies with healthcare economics, this study contributes to the business growth literature by proposing a structured priority-ranking system tailored to the challenges of emerging economies. It also provides a useful foundation for sustainable business expansion, innovation, and market development in the medical device sector.
Ahmed et al. (Sat,) studied this question.