Multicriteria Decision Making

Public corporations and private businesses operate in an increasingly complex, uncertain, and interconnected world. When evaluating investment decisions, business managers can no longer base their decisions primarily on expected financial return. They now must now consider a host of performance value measures (i.e., criteria) pertaining to issues such as environmental and social governance, sustainability, and stakeholder satisfaction. In addition, corporate managers must ensure that their investment decisions are aligned with the company’s vision, mission, and values in order to maintain investor confidence and protect brand image. Lastly, to be truly successful, business managers must assess the risks associated with each performance measure and manage their impacts during project implementation. This book takes a pragmatic business and economics view towards evaluating competing investment alternatives and/or capital project strategies. It provides a practical step-by- step process using a structured decision analysis framework to evaluate, understand, quantify, and measure project invesment strategies in light of multiple stakeholder objectives and success criteria. This process assists in helping stakeholders (internal and external) achieve a shared understanding of project issues and to facilitate convergence towards a mutually acceptable solution. The approach considers available choices, identified uncertainties, constraints, necessary tradeoffs, and preferences so as to identify solutions that maximize overall benefits while minimizing overall costs and risk. A real world case study is presented in the early chapters and the process steps are demonstrated through application to this case study. Recent advances in technology allow for investment strategies to be evaluated against multiple criteria within one integrated platform. This book guides the reader in performing multi-criteria decision analysis, including the use of Monte Carlo simulation, within an MS Excel environment using native MS Excel and as well as add-in programs such Palisades Decision Tools suite. Example model structures, screen shots, formulas, and output results are provided throughout the book using an illustrative case study.