Demand creating service : A hybrid model for identifying key selection criteria and service strategies of international express suppliers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a model not only for determining the key factors in selecting optimal international express suppliers, but also for extracting the priority strategic suggestions of management for international express suppliers. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed model comprises two parts. The first part identifies suitable criteria for evaluating international express supplier by reviewing studies from 1989 to 2009, after which the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to determine the relative weights of the criteria. The second part adopts grey relational analysis to extract five priority managing strategies from which 16 strategies are developed based on three concern factors derived from the first part. Findings – The results show customers’ top three concerns when selecting international express companies. In addition, the results show the five priority strategic suggestions to international express suppliers. Research limitations/implications – The research has two major limitations. First, this study was conducted using a sample of companies operating in Taiwan. Thus, other countries such as Japan and South Korea should be examined in future research. Second, this study focuses on the application of fuzzy AHP techniques to identify key selection criteria and service strategies of international express suppliers. Other important aspects, such as performance evaluation and performance prediction in the selection of international express suppliers, were not involved in this study because of the limited research scope. Originality/value – The proposed model helps international express suppliers enhance their competitiveness and raise their customers’ satisfaction.