Decision Matrix Analysis for Hanna's Hats Business Strategy
This paper applies unweighted and weighted decision matrices to evaluate four strategic alternatives for Hanna's Hats (HH), a company facing financial difficulty. The four alternatives — continuing current sales practices, selling through retailers, selling online, and offering a subscription service — are assessed against four business objectives. Using a 0–3 rating scale and percentage-based weighting, online selling emerges as the highest-scoring alternative. The paper then develops an evaluative report recommending that HH pursue online sales paired with a family deal package and investment from two new investors, drawing on post-pandemic e-commerce trends, consumer behavior research, and the strategic value of electronic word-of-mouth to support the final recommendation.
- Introduction: Overview of decision-matrix approach for Hanna's Hats
- Step 1: Unweighted Decision Matrix: Four alternatives rated 0–3 across four objectives
- Step 2: Weighted Decision Matrix: Percentage weights applied to refine alternative rankings
- Step 3: Matrix Evaluation: Online selling identified as top-scoring alternative
- Strategic Recommendations for Financial Recovery: E-commerce, investor outreach, and family deal strategy
- Conclusion: Final recommendation and decision process summary
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Uses a structured two-stage decision matrix methodology — first unweighted, then weighted — to make the scoring process transparent and replicable, demonstrating clear quantitative reasoning.
- Supports each rating and weight assignment with brief qualitative justifications, preventing the matrices from appearing arbitrary and connecting numbers to real business logic.
- Integrates peer-reviewed sources on e-commerce growth, consumer behavior, and brand image to ground the strategic recommendations in current academic literature.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) through a decision matrix framework. By separating the unweighted and weighted phases, the author shows how introducing importance weights changes the relative ranking of alternatives — a technique useful in any business, policy, or management context where competing options must be evaluated against multiple objectives simultaneously.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized into two parts. Part 1 walks through three sequential steps: constructing the unweighted matrix, constructing the weighted matrix, and evaluating results. Part 2 translates the quantitative findings into a qualitative strategic report, addressing online selling, investor engagement, and family deal branding. A brief conclusion summarizes the final recommendation and the decision process used to reach it.
Introduction
Businesses rely heavily on intelligent decision-making when alternative options are available. Processing information and analyzing market conditions are valuable steps that firms must execute efficiently. Defining alternatives and then assigning weights based on their relative importance is useful for maximizing the chances of selecting the right course of action. This paper reflects on Hanna's Hats' (HH) strategic alternatives in light of its business objectives, using both unweighted and weighted decision matrices. An evaluative report is then presented to address the company's financial challenges.
References
Chevalier, S. (2022, May 31). Worldwide share of consumers that shop online 2020. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1192578/worldwide-share-of-consumers-that-shop-online/
Gu, S., Slusarczyk, B., Hajizada, S., Kovalyova, I., & Sakhbieva, A. (2021). Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on online consumer purchasing behavior. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 16(6), 2263–2281. https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer16060125
Huotari, P., & Ritala, P. (2021). When to switch between subscription-based and ad-sponsored business models: Strategic implications of decreasing content novelty. Journal of Business Research, 129, 14–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.037
Schlossberg, M. (2016, January 18). This unique business model is taking over retail — and customers are saying they hate it. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription-companies-run-into-problems-2016-1
Srivastava, M., Sivaramakrishnan, S., & Saini, G. K. (2021). The relationship between electronic word-of-mouth and consumer engagement: An exploratory study. IIM Kozhikode Society and Management Review, 10(1), 66–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/2277975220965075
Wong, K. (n.d.). How to grow your business. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/guides/business/how-to-grow-your-business
Zanon, J., Scholl-Grissemann, U., Kallmuenzer, A., Kleinhansl, N., & Peters, M. (2019). How promoting a family firm image affects customer perception in the age of social media. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 10(1), 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfbs.2019.01.007
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.