Development of a fuzzy ANP based SWOT analysis for the airline industry in Turkey

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis has been widely used to evaluate alternative strategies in order to determine the best one for given business setting. This study aims at providing a quantitative basis to analytically determine the ranking of the factors in SWOT analysis via a conventional multi-criteria decision making method, Analytic Network Process (ANP). The ANP method is preferred in this study because of its capability to model potential dependencies among the SWOT factors. The study presents uniqueness in the way it incorporates inherent vagueness and uncertainty of the human decision making process by means of the fuzzy logic. The proposed SWOT fuzzy ANP methodology was implemented and tested for the Turkish airline industry. The results showed that the SWOT fuzzy ANP is a viable and highly capable methodology that provides invaluable insights for strategic management decisions in the Turkish airline industry, and can also be used as an effective tool for other complex decision making processes.

► SWOT analysis is a widely used evaluation method for alternative business strategies.
► Analytic Network Process (ANP) can be used to determine ranking of the factors in SWOT analysis.
► Fuzzy logic can be used to incorporate vagueness and uncertainty into ANP analysis.
► SWOT fuzzy ANP is a capable methodology that provides invaluable insights decision making.