Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and multi-segment goal programming applied to new product segmented under price strategy

New product development (NPD) is becoming an important competitive advantage in the marketing strategies of current businesses. Developing a new product will incur fixed and variable costs, which then determine the product prices. Although this is a fundamental issue of marketing theory and practice, only a few papers on marketing models deal with price levels. The objective of this paper is proposing a model based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and multi-segment goal programming (MSGP) to help decision makers to select the best pricing strategy for NPD. A case study of NPD under market selection strategy in multiple segment pricing levels for a Taiwan-based Watch Company is presented to illustrate the proposed methodology. The proposed method will guide the product development team to select the best market strategy by taking into account the price level and product/market segmentation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.