Market Attractiveness of Developing Countries

Companies operating in international markets need to evaluate the potential market attractiveness of developing countries with which they may want to do business. These companies have access to substantial amounts of information from specialized sources and from statistical data supplied by international institutions. Such vast and diverse information is rarely used in a systematic way in the management decision process. When it is used, the entire process is most often inadequately formalized. The available information generally deals with economic factors, while in the present international arena, judgment about politics must also be taken into account. This chapter illustrates the applicability and advantages of the Analytic Hierarchy Process to this decision problem, and uses it to create maps of joint economic progress and political stability in a number of countries for two time periods 1990–1991 and 1995–1997.