CORE IDEA

The appraisal and selection of strategic investment alternatives challenges decision-makers equally in the private and public sector. A growing company, for example, evaluates different expansion options or an R&D portfolio against criteria such as short-term profitability, long-term market share, technological leadership, costs and/or risk. Public authorities assess funding strategies amongst others by evaluating incurred costs, labour market effects and/or the risk of default. Regardless of their area of specialisation, decision-makers main objective remains the development of an optimised strategy and the prioritisation of alternative options. This is where MARA comes in. Through the application of methodologically consistent cost-benefit analyses, MARA enables its partner organisations to develop coherent strategies in a transparent and participative process. The result: an efficient allocation of resources, prioritised projects and optimised portfolios. Based on 20 years of experience at the London School of Economics (LSE), organisations realise an average 20% efficiency increase by applying these decision-analytic approaches. Besides this academic consulting like approach, the research focus of MARA will be on new ways to develop strategies using decision-analytic methodologies.