An Expert System Decision Making Tool for Community Enterprise Opportunity Analysis

Community Enterprise Opportunities (CEO) Praxis, Inc. is proposing to investigate the feasibility of developing an expert system decision making tool for local economic development organizations. The tool will assist in evaluating the viability of business opportunities and their suitability to the community's resources and local competitive advantages. The expert system will enable evaluation of entrepreneurial startup companies as well as corporate expansions and relocations. Existing expert systems will be evaluated to determine the feasibility of developing case-based reasoning and expert system decision-making aids for evaluating business opportunities. These systems are now being used to help make financial planning decisions in insurance, banking, and portfolio management. Business-related expert systems can now screen financial innovations and the introduction of new products as well as help entrepreneurs choose the type of business organization that fits their legal incorporation circumstances. The research will identify factors and attributes for an expert system based on previous research on entrepreneurial decision-making, individual migration decision-making, business analyses, target industry analysis, and economic development decisions. The expert system is envisioned as enabling economic development organizations to identify and evaluate business opportunities based on industry analyses that incorporate technology assessments, market trends, and financial information derived from industry standards.