Ranking the strategic actions of Iran mobile cellular telecommunication using two models of fuzzy QFD Hassan Khademi-Zare a , Mahnaz Zarei b,n , Ahmad Sadeghieh a , Mohammad Saleh Owlia a a Department of Industrial Engineering, Yazd University, Saffayieh, Yazd, Iran b Department of Industrial Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz Branch, Shiraz, Iran article info Keywords: Telecommunication Customer Fuzzy-Quality Function Deployment TOPSIS Analytic Hierarchy Process Strategic action abstract Mobile cellular telecommunication success in target markets first requires ranking the customer’s expectations and then prioritizing the engineering characteristics (ECs) to meet the expectations. In this paper, two prioritization models based on quality function deployment (QFD) are developed to rank the strategic actions (SAs), or the ECs of Iran mobile cellular telecommunication. QFD is a widely used customer-driven tool for which the success of its applications may be the result of some of its benefits, such as greater customer focus. It uses a matrix called House of Quality (HOQ) to translate Customer Attributes (CAs) into ECs. However, due to the high degree of subjectivity in constructing the HOQ, the application of fuzzy logic provides an efficient tool to handle the subjective assessments. On the other hand, taking into consideration the gap between the current state and the positive ideal state for each CA, TOPSIS is used to rank CAs in a first model. In addition, in a second model, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), more criteria are taken into consideration in ranking CAs. Also, a fuzzy utility factor, B j , is used to rank SAs in both models. Both presented models have the ability to capture the vagueness of human thinking style, and let customer oriented organizations, such as MCI, derive benefits from the voice of the customer (VOC) in a more expressive way. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Telecommunication is a profitable industry which develops societies in cultural, economic, and social aspects. However, any extension in its deployment should consider the circumstances of the society which is taking advantage of this industry. Therefore a multilateral study is required for telecom development in order to gain a proper ranking. Although Mobile Communication of Iran (MCI) has been so successful in giving cell-phone SIM-cards to the customers (quantitatively) in recent years, complaint reports indicate that the quality of cell-phone line service presentation could not satisfy cell-phone users in many aspects. Furthermore, elevation of customers’ expectations of MCI has led them to go beyond only playing the role of a convinced consumer and show their desires in being involved in quality promotion. Therefore, using a customer- driven tool would be so beneficial for MCI to capture its customers’ points of view and raise their satisfaction level. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a customer-driven tool widely used in product planning to achieve a higher level of customer satisfaction (Zhang, 2009). It uses a matrix called House of Quality (HOQ) to translate Customer Attributes (CAs) into engineering characteristics (ECs). Constructing the HOQ, which includes determining the importance weights of CAs, the correlation matrix among ECs and the relationship matrix between CAs and ECs are important factors in the application of Contents lists available at ScienceDirect URL: www.elsevierbusinessandmanagement.com/locate/telpol Telecommunications Policy 0308-5961/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.telpol.2010.10.001 n Corresponding author. Tel.: + 98 9177161298; fax: + 98 7116251810. E-mail addresses: mzarei@stu.yazduni.ac.ir, delbina.2008@gmail.com (M. Zarei). Telecommunications Policy 34 (2010) 747–759