Choosing the Right Supply Chain Strategy for a Customer Segment

4 Choosing the Right Supply Chain Strategy for a Customer Segment 

In the previous sections, various interrelations between supply chain strategies and the business environment have been discussed, both from the customers and the focal company s perspective. For the purpose of achieving an integrated, hoUstic 

The most creative decision-making process involves prioritizing the hierarchy. There are different steps in elaborating a hierarchy according to Saaty (1996). 

Regarding the analytical hierarchy process, pairwise comparisons of the various relevant factors on different hierarchic levels with regard to an overall goal are performed. In each step of the process, the different attributes identified at a particular hierarchic level are compared with respect to the level above, in a descending order from the top level on. The prioritizations of each level are then combined and a final ranking of priorities is obtained (Saaty 1994). 

For the present context, the hierarchical structure for the AHP is shown in Fig. 3.13. On the top level, the business unit strategy, product characteristics and customer needs are rated against each other with respect to the overall goal. Thereafter, on the next lower level, the different factors are compared with regard to the corresponding factor of the next higher level. For example, the diverse customer needs are ranked. Finally, a pairwise comparison of the four value 

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