Professional decisions

Do you know those apps that help you make decisions? For instance, you can ask Magic Mussel whether you should cook pasta for lunch. However, the answer you are served is humorous rather than a meaningful solution, unless by coincidence.   

Really complex decisions have captured the interest of a young startup. The Anchor Decisions platform works in a similar way to Magic Mussel – but it is based on sound information and takes into consideration strategic objectives.   

The Corporate Startup  

The three friends Nils Ehrenfeld, Marius Kolleck and Johannes Ritter jointly established the startup enterprise ‘Anchor Decisions’. What began during the winter of 2020 as an idea discussed over a beer turned into an implementable innovation. The company offers a platform that helps companies make effective decisions. Instead of following their gut instinct, clients work their way towards an objectively justifiable solution. The founders’ idea is to rethink the entire decision-making and change management process, in both project organization and the enterprise as a whole. Anchor Decisions has a collaborative approach, is transparent and generates efficient results.   

The particularity of this corporate startup: thanks to the investor Drees & Sommer the entrepreneurial risk borne by the founders is lower than with other startup constellations. However, all decisions on strategy, development and the future course of the company are taken independently by Anchor Decisions. Both the Drees & Sommer Innovation team and the three founders deliberated over this merger at length beforehand. What convinced the young entrepreneurs above all was the idea of being able to dedicate themselves fully to the product and the clients. With strong support behind them, they have more time and energy to do this. Drees & Sommer supports startups particularly in the initial phase and provides assistance in marketing and the launch of the website.   

The Idea behind Anchor Decisions  

Decision-making when there is great uncertainty – especially in the early phases of complex projects – often comes at a high cost in terms of money, time and nerves. It was pretty clear to the founders that there was room for improvement and that digital processes would be a benefit.   

As Nils Ehrenfeld is in charge of lean management at Drees & Sommer’s office in Frankfurt am Main, the ‘lean’ philosophy obviously represents the basic component of the idea. Simplified processes, enhanced cooperation, higher transparency and smoother visualization not only help speed up the decision-making process but also increase efficiency. The uncertainty is reduced. This saves money, time and nerves, because fewer changes are necessary in later phases of the project.  

The Functions of Anchor Decisions  

All relevant stakeholders jointly use the platform. The lean approach supports the preparation, evaluation and taking of decisions. Automated recommendations are generated on the basis of captured data. Anchor Decisions works with an integrated task management. This means that users are informed about all decisions to be taken or already taken in order to keep track of the general picture. The tool permits a centralized and uniform administration of content. The platform also presents information visually, making consequences or connections between decisions clear. This makes project management more transparent. The ‘Choosing by Advantages (CBA)’ method helps users compare the advantages of possible alternatives objectively. This enables not only better and faster decision-making, but also makes the decision easier to follow.  

Despite this, on the whole Anchor Decisions works for all methods – this is important in responding to the individual needs of different clients. There is no single correct method, particularly for complex decisions. The platform gains this flexibility by learning from different projects with the aid of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which results in continuous improvements in the speed and quality of decision-making.   

With this corporate startup backed by Drees & Sommer, the founders Nils Ehrenfeld, Marius Kolleck and Johannes Ritter offer clients a platform that helps them take difficult decisions. What is obvious: the more complex the decision, the more stakeholders are involved in the decision-taking process, the higher the added value provided by Anchor Decisions.  

If you are interested in the subject of decision-making, why not drop in:   

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/anchor-decisions/   

Website (in German): No more maybe – Anchor Decisions – Die Plattform für effiziente Entscheidungsfindung (anchor-decisions.com)  

Listen to our Blue Waves podcast: LINK TO THE PODCAST WITH NILS EHRENFELD (german)