EconAir

  You need to know three things about management:   80/20 Rule Opportunity Cost Compound Growth   80/20 Rule (Also called Pareto’s Law)   This idea says that a relatively small percent of actions account for a relatively large percent of outcomes. Find and concentrate your efforts on the important influences on your business. The original studies were about the concentration of income and wealth. Recent  studies seem to indicate increasing concentration of income and wealth in the United States. A company's choice of target market and market niches is critical to marketing strategy.   Some hypothetical examples.   20% of your customers account for 80% of your sales.   Often, companies with a large product line with many variations find that 50% of their products account for over 90% of sales. An even smaller percent usually accounts for most of the profits.   20% of your SKUs account for 80% of your stockouts (and lost sales).   20%...

INTRODUCTION I was, for many years, in charge of finding and analyzing acquisitions for a large company.   Then, for two years, I was an independent merger broker and took part in negotiations. MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS American corporations spend over $1 trillion a year buying other companies.   This is more than they spend on net new investment (minus data center investment).   Even more than they spend on boxes at pro sports stadiums. Buying another company is a risky corporate strategy.   The few studies I have read indicate that 70-80% of acquisitions are failures.   They do not earn the acquirer’s opportunity cost of capital.   Many are a total loss and result in future write-downs.   This failure rate from published research is similar to the information I collected.   My department would use discounted cash flow/net present value analysis to determine the maximum price we would pay for an acquisition (the present v...