Hi there,

I am building a model in excel to estimate the cost savings that a
company may achieve by implementing several cost savings initiatives.
The issue I have is that I have 10 different savings initiatives and
some of them reduce overlapping costs. Therefore, they are not
additive: If I choose to implement intiative 1, then I will not
achieve 100% of the value from initiative 2.

How can I set up scenarios so that if I make one initiative active,
100% of the value runs through the model, but if multiple initiatives
are active it recognizes the overlap ? Do I need to create an overlap
table / matrix that indicates how much of the value can be recognized?

Thanks!
Laura

In article . com,
says...
Hi there,

I am building a model in excel to estimate the cost savings that a
company may achieve by implementing several cost savings initiatives.
The issue I have is that I have 10 different savings initiatives and
some of them reduce overlapping costs. Therefore, they are not
additive: If I choose to implement intiative 1, then I will not
achieve 100% of the value from initiative 2.

How can I set up scenarios so that if I make one initiative active,
100% of the value runs through the model, but if multiple initiatives
are active it recognizes the overlap ? Do I need to create an overlap
table / matrix that indicates how much of the value can be recognized?

Thanks!
Laura


If all you have are 2 initiatives interacting, yes, a matrix will do the
job. Actually, unless the sequence of intiatives matters, a "half matrix"
(either an upper triangular matrix or a lower) will suffice.

But, if there can be more than 2 initiatives, anything you try will get
pretty messy pretty fast. For example, with 3 initiatives, what will be
impact of both I1 and I2 on I3?

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta
www.tushar-mehta.com
Excel, PowerPoint, and VBA add-ins, tutorials
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