Preliminary findings

I explained before the methodology that we followed to implement the Delphi in the wine sector. Let’s see some Preliminary finding. These findings come from experts who are based in the Okanagan Valley in Canada. Now this study is a worldwide one that different researchers talk about different wine regions in the world. These findings come from two very good colleagues of mine called Alan and Michael who work in the Okanagan School of Business in Canada and they have implemented the study there.

As I have explained before in round one, the panel of experts were asked to identify different important future issues that they relate to different factors, political, economic, environmental, social, cultural, and technological factors. The two researchers receive the opinions of the experts. Through the qualitative content analysis, they have actually cluster the different opinions in two different issues. The majority of them, they relate, as you can see to political factors and the list of them. They relate to factors that they have to do with our environment.

On the second round, the experts were given back the feedback of the different type of issues. And they were asked to give their opinion about what is the likelihood that every factor is going to happen. And what is the significant impact of this factor to the industry. The facilitator got the feedback and the response from the experts. And then what he actually did, was to cluster all the different factors, one by one, into a two dimensional matrix. The one that actually measures the significance of every factor, and the second measuring the likelihood. we use the mean as the cut off point into a low or a high importance or likelihood factor.

So a two dimensional matrix with two criteria for its dimension. We eventually came up with four different groups whereby the different factors cluster into that. How important is this? Well, you can see the results here. All the factors that they are in this group, meaning high significant factors and high likelihood that the factor is going to happen. Of course, the issues that the industry has to focus on to manage if they want to have their business successful and innovative in the future.

Now, on the third round, what we actually did with our experts was to ask them to rank every division factor in terms of its importance. And that was important because we didn’t want only to rely on this course that the experts have given on the second round about the likelihood that every factor is going to happen. As you can see here, we have the list of factors identified from the first round. We have the opinions of all the experts consolidated in terms of what is the number of experts reported from a scale from one to five. What is the likelihood that the factor is going to happen.

And then we also have the results on the third round in terms of how every expert has ranked the factor in terms of the likelihood that is going to happen. Now, as you can see, the writing of every factor, It’s not always in alignment with a mean score, were all with a percentage of the experts that they agree in an extreme extent or in a less extent how important it is. For example, in this case, factor relate to the importance and the likelihood that the E-commerce is going to happen, seventy one percent of the experts agree that these factors have extremely likelihood to happen.

But on the third round, that was actually ranked as number four factor to happen in the future.

We did the same in terms of the significance of the impact. So again, here you see the list of the factors identified in round number one. On this part, you can actually see the percentage of the panel members that they agreed that this factor is extremely important. And it has a good and great impact in the industry. The percentage of people that they gave a score of four, minus one, two, and three. On the last round, you actually see how the experts have ranked every factor in terms of the significance of the impact of every single issue.

Again, if somebody goes through the whole list, you will identify and see that the opinion of the experts on the second round is not always in alignment with the score that they gave in terms of the rank of the importance and the significant impact of the factor.

So I hope this example gave a good illustration in terms of how somebody can apply, not only just the procedure and the theory of the Delphi Method, but also how one can visualize and analyze the result of different rounds. There is a lot of literature in terms of how somebody can implement the Delphi Method and what are the underlying principles of that. You have a whole series or some significant studies here, some from the generic field and some from the tourism field as well. I hope you will enjoy the reading.