Influence of AHP Methodology and Human Behaviour on e-Scouting Process

The e-scouting process, to search for and select products whose characteristics are known in catalogues, is often inefficient and ineffective: the overload of information available on the Web and the human limitations in processing information, are the main cause. Experiments, in order to simulate the escouting process of a leverage [1] product by a set of student buyers, were performed and results on effectiveness and efficiency of e-scouting process strategies and methods are collected and analyzed. Referring to the strategic evaluation of the e-scouting process, results show that a Decision Support System (DSS) based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology [2], supports the buyerHuman Decision Maker (HDM) to interpret in a coherent way the strategic guidelines previously set by the high level management. Regarding to method’s evaluation of e-scouting process, was appreciated that if quantitative product features are known and limited in a range of variation, the Human Decision Maker’s evaluation substantially coincide with the evaluation of a Virtual Decision Maker (VDM) based on Analytic Hierarchy Process. On the contrary, the difference among HDM and VDM is considerable when quantitative product characteristics are unknown or unlimited. The work carried out has shown that using a DSS based on AHP is always useful to improve efficiency and effectiveness on e-scouting process’ strategies however efficiency and effectiveness on e-scouting process’ method can be improved by DSS based on AHP only if the human evaluation about product features is limited.