A fuzzy logic evaluation system for commercial loan analysis

This paper introduces an application of fuzzy logic to commercial loan analysis. It describes the fuzzy sets and linguistic variables that contribute to the financial evaluation. It also presents a computer-based Fuzzy Logic Evaluation System consisting of the components Specify Fuzzy Sets, Edit Rules, and Evaluator. The Evaluator performs fuzzification, evaluation, and defuzzification activities. Using company-specific and industry financial data, the current version of the system appraises a company's credit, capital, and capacity performance. A specific example for efficiency analysis illustrates the system constructs.     

Risk assessment of outsourcing e-procurement services: integrating SWOT analysis with a modified ANP-based fuzzy inference system

With electronic procurement solutions becoming increasingly sophisticated, many firms opt to source these services from third-party providers, effectively transferring (outsourcing) significant responsibility to these services companies. This action, however, entails certain risks, which are oftentimes difficult to assess. To guide managerial practice and to advance academic inquiry in this domain, we identify e-procurement risk factors through a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats analysis, grounded in transaction cost economics (TCE), and propose a risk assessment framework based on the opinions of a group of experts. The approach taken is that of a modified analytic network process methodology, combined with a fuzzy inference system, which is versatile enough to accept the expert opinions in different input formats (such as linguistic variables and ranges). The proposed framework has the capability to aggregate expert judgements’ to estimate risk likelihoods, risk severities and risk factor indices, and derive overall risk magnitudes. The multi-method approach was motivated and is illustrated by a real-life case study of an Indian manufacturing company currently in the process of contract renewal with its existing e-procurement service provider.     

Cyber risk assessment in small and medium-sized enterprises: A multilevel decision-making approach for small e-tailors

The role played by information and communication technologies in today's businesses cannot be underestimated. While such technological advancements provide numerous advantages and opportunities, they are known to thread organizations with new challenges such as cyberattacks. This is particularly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are deemed to be the least mature and highly vulnerable to cybersecurity risks. Thus, this research is set to assess the cyber risks in online retailing SMEs (e-tailing SMEs). Therefore, this article employs a sample of 124 small e-tailers in the United Kingdom and takes advantage of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method. Indeed, we identified a total number of 28 identified cyber-oriented risks in five exhaustive themes of “security,” “dependency,” “employee,” “strategic,” and “legal” risks. Subsequently, an integrated approach using step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and best–worst method (BWM) has been employed to develop a pathway of risk assessment. As such, the current study outlines a novel approach toward cybersecurity risk management for e-tailing SMEs and discusses its effectiveness and contributions to the cyber risk management literature.