Evaluation of entry and penetration strategies to middle east market utilizing a multi criteria decision analysis approach

Companies decide to invest abroad as they confront with saturation in their home market or as they want to achieve growth in different markets. In most cases, this move towards new markets could be considered as part of the broader internationalization process, especially for big companies. The selection of a new market represents one of the most important decisions that the companies deal with while going abroad. The next important decision will be how to enter the market as well as what strategies to use to penetrate the chosen market. This study aims to identify and prioritize the criteria those will be used for the evaluation of entry and penetration strategies through a multi criteria decision model to support Turkish companies which plan to enter and penetrate Middle East market with packaged food products. For this purpose, an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) based decision making process is utilized. First of all, strategy evaluation criteria are identified resulting from the interviews with foreign trade specialists, managers, and consultants as well as the literature survey. Then, questions regarding to pairwise comparison of criteria are posed to these experts to reveal the relative importance of the related criteria. Finally, recommendations based on the findings are presented to the companies intending to invest in this market.