A Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Framework for the Strategic Evaluation of Business Development Models

Selecting an appropriate business development model is central to strategic decision-making in economic and business management. These models shape sustainable growth, long-term scalability, and strategic flexibility. Existing evaluation methods rely on heuristic or qualitative judgments that lack transparency, reproducibility, and sensitivity to evaluation criteria. To address these limitations, this study introduces a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework that integrates VIKOR, entropy weighting, and simulation to evaluate 35 business development models derived from 245 real-world cases. The evaluation covers six strategic criteria: scalability, adaptability, risk exposure, financial sustainability, implementation complexity, and market relevance. Entropy weighting assigns criterion importance based on data variability, and simulation generates input sets for sensitivity and stability analysis. Results highlight Cross-Border Investment, Tiered Access, and Crowd-Backed models as top-performing strategies across multiple dimensions. By combining multiple tools in a unified framework, the research advances MCDM methodology and supports strategic business development planning under uncertainty. This contribution strengthens both academic insight and managerial practice in economics and business management.