Determining priorities of effective organizational strategies by ANP and SWOT models

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis does not provide an analytical means to determine the importance of the identified factors or the ability to assess decision alternatives according to these factors. Although the analysis pinpoints the factors successfully, individual factors are usually described briefly and generally. For this reason, SWOT analysis possesses deficiencies in the measurement and evaluation steps. Although the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique removes these deficiencies, it does not allow for the measurement of the possible dependencies among the factors. Therefore, it is better to employ a form of SWOT analysis that measures and takes into account the possible dependencies among the factors. This paper uses the analytic network process (ANP), which allows the quantitative analysis of SWOT and measurement of the dependencies among the factors. Dependencies among the SWOT factors affect the strategic and sub-factor weights and change the strategy priorities. Aim of this research is to determine the priority of organizational strategies for using. SWOT is used for determining strategies and ANP is used for evaluating strategies. Finally, strategy of SO is selected as the best strategy for using because it has the highest weight in final matrix. Key Word: Strategic Planning, SWOT, AHP, AN