The development of evaluation model for new business projects using the analytic hierarchy process and a case study of telecommunication equipment company

The launch of a new business is crucial to the future growth and profitability of a company. A new business project typically requires a large amount of resources while it has a high possibility of failure. The evaluation of new business opportunities is therefore quite a critical decision-making to companies. This evaluation includes screening of a large number of criteria at a time which often makes decision-making very complicated. Management should evaluate the business alternatives in a sound and consistent manner that is hard to achieve because the new business evaluation is a typical semi/unstructured decision-making problem. The difficulty in such an evaluation will increase if it is required for management to consider both quantitative and qualitative criteria simultaneously. Under these circumstances, this study has proposed a decision-making framework that utilizes analytical hierarchy process. This study has identified a set of criteria essential to the new business evaluation and suggested a systematic framework for it. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluations are incorporated into the single framework in this study.