On the Application of AHP to the Diagnostic of Portuguese SME

摘要

In this paper we present an application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate intervention measures in Portuguese Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). These intervention measures result from an external diagnostic performed under the QREN program ("Quadro de Referenda Estrategico Nacional" - National Strategic Reference Framework). QREN aims at the development of Portuguese economy and is financed by the European Union. The AHP application enables to acquire more knowledge about the decision process, to rank the intervention measures and to focus on the most promising ones. We consider different ways of applying AHP to rank of intervention measures, and we argue that the classical use of AHP is not the most appropriate for the type of application at hand. We present the results of applying the AHP to two cases. The results show that this application adds consistency and focus to the interventions in the framework of QREN.