ABSTRACT:

Managers of small businesses are recognizing the potential of computer use for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational activities. In spite of the growing importance of computer use, there is no commonly accepted methodology for selecting computer systems for small businesses. The absence of an effective selection methodology is due to (1) the lack of a structure for formulating the selection problem and (2) the scarcity of manageable decision models for large numbers of quantitative and qualitative factors. This paper attempts to create a selection model which overcomes these deficiencies by using cluster and factor analyses to develop a structure with a small set of decision variables representing the choice domain. This structure, a reduced, ordered set of system characteristics, was coupled with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for making selection decisions. The attribute structure developed here ought to be relevant to the selection decisions of many purchasers of small business computer systems. The feasibility of this approach to system selection is illustrated with a sample execution of the process. The AHP allows users to conduct sensitivity analysis to determine how system rankings vary with attribute preferences and attribute ratings of individual systems.