| Have you ever puzzled over academic concepts? …thought, “What does this mean? Should I be using this?“ | |
| This briefing discusses some academic stuff, which is important for teachers to understand. It’s useful for professionals too, because you may come across these concepts, puzzle about what they mean, and wonder if you should be using them. I have put a few key references at the end. Continue reading » |
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| Why is the typical approach to business planning and forecasting flawed? | |
| Strategic planning generally aims to get to an estimate of future sales and profits, so how these items are estimated is critical. Typically, you would start with a forecast for demand, and by assessing how competition could affect prices, get a value-forecast for the market. Setting targets for increased market share would then give a forecast for sales volume and revenue. There are however problems associated with this typical approach to business planning and forecasting… Continue reading » |
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| When is theory powerful? | |
| Whether they like it or not, decision makers use theory all the time, even if it is only their own private beliefs about why things happen and the likely impact of their decisions. Theory does not need to be complex – it is simply an explanation for what causes what, and how – without which there can be little confidence in the likely effect of any strategy we develop or decisions we might take. Continue reading » | |
Nov 222009
I see that icon of ‘not even the sky is the limit’, Ryanair, is finding gravity still exists. In a curious ‘threat’ to curtail growth, lively CEO O’Leary says it’s not as easy to pick up dirt-cheap aircraft as he did in 2002. He’s not quite so open about the company’s experience of opening hundreds of routes between city-pairs. I’ve tried reconciling their statements of routes opened, operated and closed, and it’s not easy – lots of hype about huge numbers of new routes being started, but curious shyness about how many close.
It rather looks like the love-affair with flying everywhere for nothing – no matter the inconveniece involved - is fading, so both routes and service frequency might have to fall. The parallel with Starbucks over-expansion of stores is uncanny.
