An integrated model to identify and rank the after sales service strategies of firms engaged in household appliances business

The problem of identifying the strategic objectives to improve the performance of an organisation based on its internal and external environment and further, to identify the action plans that will help in meeting these objectives, is addressed in this paper. An integrated model by conjoining strength, weakness, opportunities and threat (SWOT) analysis, balanced scorecard (BSC), analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and quality function deployment (QFD) is developed to tackle this problem. The initial strategies are identified through the SWOT matrix, which are then categorised into the four BSC perspectives. These strategic objectives are used as 'WHATs' in the QFD process and AHP is used to determine the relative weightings of these objectives; after identifying the action plans that are the 'HOWs' of the QFD, the prioritisation of the action plans is done by using the concepts of QFD. The proposed model will help in translating the vision of an organisation into action and a case study involving the after sales service (ASS) operations of a firm engaged in household appliances business is considered to show the efficiency of the proposed model.