Application of a Fuzzy Delphi Method in Marketing: A Review

The Delphi method has been widely utilized in a number of scientific domains to aid forecasting and decision-making. Created by Dalkey and Helmer (Manag Sci 9:458–467, 1963), the method was developed to forecast future scenarios based on the consensus of expert opinions collected through several iterations of structured questionnaires. Although the approach was adopted in various disciplines, several shortcomings of the method, such as lack of consistent standards for result interpretation, limited generalization, the long-time needed for implementation, and susceptibility to the subjective interpretation of the qualitative results, have been identified over time. The purpose of the study is to review the available scientific literature on the application of a Fuzzy Delphi method in the marketing domain, in order to measure the interest in the method, identify the studies that have utilized the fuzzy Delphi method for marketing related topics, and determine the areas of marketing where the method has been applied so far. Fuzzy Delphi method has found the most extensive application in operation management, decision sciences, and business intelligence and has not been widely adopted as a method of choice in marketing studies.