The 2nd in a series of blogs on: “Rethinking Business Assumptions and Models”
Financial reporting for business has been complexifying (and increasing in cost) since 1494 when: double-entry-accounting and the balance sheet were invented. Since we swim in financial numbers, it’s the language of business and blinds us to believing in and using other insightful analytics.
Continue reading 251. Distributors’ Financial-Management Blind Spots
Vigorish (“vig”) is the fee charged by a bookmaker (casino or loan shark) for accepting a gambler’s wager. For roulette, gamblers bet on 1- 36 possibilities. The wheel, though, has 38 slots that include 0 and 00. When the ball lands in the 0’s (2/38th or 5.26% of the time) the house takes in all bets. With a 5%+ edge and time, the house prospers.
What if your company had several, service-value edges over the competition? Or, conversely, would you want to compete against a firm that has big, additive, value and/or cost edges over you? Two cases.
Continue reading 199. Create – Targeted, Additive, Service – Vigorish
Over the past 40 years, 4 Noble-Prize winners have proven that our brains evolved with cognitive biases. These biases served Sapiens well in a hunter-gather context. But, they cue irrational decisions in our modern world.
Continue reading 197. C-19 Price Gouging; Relic-SKU Pricing; and “Strategic Pricing”
Calendar-year distributors: what’s your planning routine for 2020? Is it forecasts, goal setting and budgets, to beat last year by trying harder? Plus, what big-new-competitive-advantage experiments will you be trying? If you aren’t planning something a bit scary, then you are doing same old stuff in new clothes to get fading results. Continue reading 177. Scary Strategic Questions for 2020 (A)*
Calendar-year distributors: what’s your planning routine for 2020? Is it forecasts, goal setting and budgets, to beat last year by trying harder? Plus, what big-new-competitive-advantage experiments will you be trying? If you aren’t planning something a bit scary, then you are doing same old stuff in new clothes to get fading results. Continue reading 177. Scary Strategic Questions for 2020 (A)*
Valuations for WeWork, Uber, Blue Apron, etc. have been tanking. They all prove that a company’s business service-cost model can’t spend more costs on a unit of activity than the unit’s margin-dollar content, and then make it up on volume.
The same economic reality hit many retail dotcoms back in 2000. Remember eToys? In ’99, they were averaging $20 in margin per order while spending an all-in cost of $300 per order for fulfillment.
Continue reading 175. Melting-Unicorn Wisdom for DistributorsWhen decisions are made at Amazon, “the best data and innovation metrics” win. No hearsay, golden-gut, follow the herd, or political self-interest beliefs. The HiPPO (Highest Paid Person Opinion) in the room doesn’t win with suck-ups bobbling in agreement. Continue reading 174. Doctors Prescribe: “Evidenced-Based Management”