Every morning I spend about an hour or so scanning news feeds from a range of sources with the primary of objective of updating my database of world trends – and of course getting ideas for blog posts! Living here in London we have a saying about buses. When you’re waiting for a bus (sometimes [...]
In my review of major trends to watch I talk about New Politics – in short the prospect of quite fundamental change in the political environment due largely to the toxic confluence of the end of consumerism and austerity. If you want to explore this concept further Kagarlitsky[1] paints a succinct, but challenging, scenario. Broadly, [...]
Nothing like an attention grabbing headline. But it is a headline that raises serious issues. Now that a pathway (of varying lengths and gradients, depending upon where you are located) is appearing leading us out of the Great Recession, a common picture of hope is emerging. The picture of hope is that, broadly, increasing consumerism [...]
Harvard Professor James Heskett makes a relevant observation in a HBS Working Knowledge blog post[1] where he makes the point that leaders in organizations may have the tendency be in denial when it comes to recognizing bad news. Drawing upon the work of Richard Tedlow, denial is defined as “seeing but not seeing“. This is [...]
A good leading indicator of change is unemployment. In earlier posts I have referred to Spain’s unemployment rate – projected to peak at around 20% – as “socially destructive”. This situation becomes even more alarming if we look at unemployment rates for the young (here defined as 15 – 24 year-olds) – which could produce, [...]
Unlikely bedfellows you may think, but two articles from the Institute of Fiscal Studies[1], [2] can help us to see the type of future that may await us, particularly for the losers of the Great Recession, those that I call the “bloc #3“. The key points from the above articles are: (1) Public sector spending [...]
The current debate on the size of bankers’ bonuses and new regulation approaches emerging from both the US and EU may miss the most important point. The most important point is that the developed economies’ grip on the international institutions that shape the working of the global economy will weaken and faster than you may [...]
Tip #2: Who are your most profitable customers? It’s surprising the number of businesses that cannot answer this question. A simple activity-based costing exercise, linked to the expected longevity of your client relationships, can produce rich results. You should aim to be able to populate this matrix: This is a valuable exercise as you will [...]
This is the the first in a series of tips or suggestions to help you and your business make the most of the economic recovery. The first tip is aimed specifically at business to business organizations: Tip #1: Do you understand who are the new decision-makers and what they want? Chances are that the recession [...]
Overview This post considers the implications of a long , slow L-shaped recovery in the developed economies. The outcome could be a divided world, with the developed economies split into two groups or blocs. In the scenario presented here, the lasting effects of the Great Recession are felt as seismic changes in both the political [...]
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