Developing marketing strategy with MarStra: the support system and the real‐world tests

Explores the potential of a hybrid intelligent system in supporting marketing strategy development. First, a hybrid intelligent system for developing marketing strategy, called MarStra (developed by the author), is outlined. Then discusses the real‐world tests of MarStra with marketing directors in five large UK companies. Empirical evidence from the companies involved indicates that MarStra is very helpful and useful in: providing strategic analysis guidance; coupling strategic analysis with managerial judgement; helping strategic thinking; dealing with fuzziness and uncertainty; and supporting group assessment of strategic marketing factors. The intelligent outputs generated by MarStra were reported to be surprisingly accurate, mostly sound and useful prompts.