A Web-enabled hybrid approach to strategic marketing planning: Group Delphi plus a Web-based expert system

A Web-enabled hybrid approach to strategic marketing planning is established in this paper. The proposed approach combines the group Delphi technique with a Web-based expert system, called WebStra (developed by the author), to support some key stages of the strategic marketing planning process. The Web-enabled approach is based upon client-server architecture that enables the sharing and delivery of computerised planning models and knowledge via the Internet, intranets or extranets, which allows widespread access by authorised users around the clock, across the world or throughout the company. In order to assess the overall value of the proposed approach, case-based evaluation work has been undertaken. Evaluation findings indicate that the approach is effective and efficient in terms of overcoming time and geographical barriers, saving decision-making time, coupling analysis with human judgment, helping improve decision-making quality, etc. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.