Total assessment and optimization of telecommunication sectors by an integrated multivariate approach

290-298This paper presents an integrated multivariate approach (IMA) for total assessment, ranking and optimization of telecommunication sectors based on standard indicators identified by International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The integrted approach is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Numerical Taxonomy. Results of DEA are verified by PCA and Numerical Taxonomy by Spearman correlation technique. Indicators are catagorized as telephone network size, other services, quality of service, traffic, tariffs, staff, demography, economy, information technology, broadcasting and mobile services. To present applicability of IMA, data for 2003 of 27 developed and developing countries are used. A total of 9 indicators are considered, out of which 4 are inputs and 5 are outputs. The results identifies the most efficient inputs or outputs which can aid management in overal assessment and optimization. This is the first study that presents an IMA for total assessment, improvement and optimization of the telecommunication sectors. The integrated approach of this study may be easily used for performance assessment and optimization of other telecommunication sectors