Feeds/Syndicate
Choose your preferred method of syndication. All feeds are full-posts & ad-free. All feeds are protected under copyright and may not be redistributed without permission.
Full Feed (RSS)
Category Archives: Forecasting
The Widening Scope of Spend Analysis: Procurement to Finance
Spend analysis is the process of collecting, cleansing, classifying, enriching, and analyzing expenditure data. In the past, spend analysis was primarily conducted to analyze procurement spend. However, of late, because of its many benefits, the process is increasingly being leveraged … Read More…
Technological Convergence: A Snapshot Perspective
The last decade has seen the advent of technological convergence across different platforms, products, and capabilities – reducing the gap between consumer electronics, telecom, and computing industry. Historically, the emphasis had been on stand-alone products – focused on a single … Read More…
Real Option Analysis: A Multi-faceted Approach to Efficient Capital Budgeting
Traditionally, managers have used a range of tools and techniques in the process of making the most efficient project evaluation decisions i.e. whether to invest in a given project or not. These have included approaches such as Payback, NPV, IRR … Read More…
Change in the Middle East and North Africa: Implications for Business
The recent civil unrest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has, for obvious reasons, attracted significant attention globally. With countries across the globe still working to recover in the aftermath of the 2008–09 global economic crisis, the … Read More…
Is the Manufacturing Sourcing Model Changing?
Emerging markets in Southeast Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe have become attractive manufacturing locations for many industries, primarily because of their cheap labor and FDI- friendly environment. Additionally, governments in these fast-growing markets have encouraged the emergence and growth … Read More…
The Outlook for the Brazilian Real
Recent oil discoveries, the hosting of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, as well as improved sovereign ratings from credit agencies, have firmly placed Brazil as a ‘must-have’ investment in every emerging market focused portfolio. However, investor interest … Read More…
Understanding the Recent Growth in Food Prices
The last year has seen an all too familiar pattern of food price hikes, not dissimilar to what we experienced back in 2007-2008. The 2008 food price hikes were driven by several factors, including high oil prices and the increasing … Read More…
Africa – A Closer Look
Africa is a continent that evokes a wide range of perspectives, from the cultural to the political to the economic. In all of these different, yet interrelated ways, it is clearly a force to be reckoned with. Consider a few … Read More…
Delinquency Modeling Using Survival Analysis
For financial services organizations in the business of lending, understanding which customers should be granted a particular loan, and, importantly, how much, has been a central question that not just drives their profitability, but, as we have seen in the … Read More…
Precious Metals – The Outlook for Silver and Gold
“The ultimate asset bubble.” This is how George Soros described gold last year, even as his fund took sizable long positions in the precious metal. Why not take advantage of rising values (so long as the bubble doesn’t burst), particularly … Read More…
Nuclear Energy in Germany
Nuclear energy has been heralded by many as one of the most important solutions to the growing energy demands of the world, particularly given concerns regarding increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the rising price of oil. The popularity of nuclear … Read More…
Understanding the Concept of Market Basket Analysis
Retailing today is nothing if not a hypercompetitive industry. A complex & rapidly changing landscape, stiff competition, and ever more demanding customers are pushing progressive retailers to rethink how they operate. Their responses have included strategies of scale (consolidation, growth, … Read More…
4 Key Trends Influencing Automotive Procurement
Few industries today are as global, interrelated and complex as the automotive sector. (Fewer still have gone through the level of challenge and change that we have seen over the past several years.) As the automotive sector has emerged from … Read More…
Success in Mergers & Acquisitions
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) activity is par for the course in the corporate world these days. Over the last several decades, there has been a consistent increase in both the number and value of transactions taking place, not only in … Read More…
What’s Next for the Chinese Yuan?
On February 17th, in a significant announcement by Chinese authorities, plans to allow domestic trading of Yuan options against other currencies from April onwards were rolled out, with the fundamental aim of assisting Chinese exporters and importers hedge against currency … Read More…
Tags analytics, Business Planning, business strategy, China, Emerging Markets, Finance, Financial Research, Knowledge Process Outsourcing, Marketing Comments Off
The Key to Establishing Procurement’s Credibility within the Organization
The last two decades have seen a sea change in the Procurement function’s (and the Procurement executive’s) standing within the organization. No longer the proverbial ‘back water’ department, Procurement now occupies an important seat at the executive table—a development that … Read More…
China and its Influence on the Global Rare Earth Metals Market
“The Middle East has its oil, China has rare earth metals.” —Deng Xiaoping, Chinese President (1992) Take an even a cursory look at any major business media today and China’s influence in the minerals and metals commodity markets is inescapable. … Read More…
Four key challenges for supply chains in 2011 and beyond
These four challenges are highlighted in this article, along with a high level look into the types of informational tools and techniques that can be leveraged to help manage them effectively. If there is a truism in supply chains, it … Read More…
Copper – Primer & Outlook
Copper is regarded as the most valuable of primary base metals, barring nickel, even though it is not the largest base metal market in the world. Indeed, it is considered a barometer for the state of the economy, given its … Read More…
Iceland’s Volcanic Ash Cloud and its Impact on Global Trade: A Primer
The volcanic eruption in Iceland has led to a crisis not only for the European air transportation industry, in particular, – disrupting air travel and air cargo operations across northern Europe – but also global commerce overall. The eruption of … Read More…