Intelligent selection of strategic alliance partners in automobile manufacturing industry based on DEA and grey system theory.

Since the 1980s, the number of international strategic alliances has been on the rise and the alliance has become a novel mode of corporate growth. Therefore, the selection of strategic partners has always been relevant to the fulfillment of strategic objectives of a corporation. Since the conflicts among partners' motivations can easily lead to the breakup of a strategic alliance, the pursuit of an appropriate strategic partner has become essential to the success of an enterprise. This paper mainly conducts a case study on the French auto-manufacturer Renault with the grey system theory and DEA analysis. Relevant data from Bloomberg BusinessWeek of 2015 have been studied, and the data concerns 19 auto-manufacturers including Group Renault in four consecutive fiscal years from 2012 to 2015. After the data analysis, an intelligent method of selecting appropriate strategic partners has been proposed. According to the intelligent method, among the 19 decision-making units on the list, Nissan Motor Company (DMU8) and Daimler AG (DMU3) are the most suitable strategic partners to form an alliance with Renault (DMU13).