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Quantified Strategy
Decreased uncertainty, improved decisions
Global Advisors is a leader in defining quantified strategies, decreasing uncertainty, improving decisions and achieving measureable results.
We specialise in providing highly-analytical data-driven recommendations in the face of significant uncertainty.
We utilise advanced predictive analytics to build robust strategies and enable our clients to make calculated decisions.
We support implementation of adaptive capability and capacity.
Our latest
Thoughts
Global Advisors’ Thoughts: Is insecurity behind that dysfunction?
By Marc Wilson
Marc is a partner at Global Advisors and based in Johannesburg, South Africa
Download this article at http://www.globaladvisors.biz/inc-feed/20170907/thoughts-is-insecurity-behind-that-dysfunction
We tend to characterise insecurity as what we see in overtly fragile, shy and awkward people. We think that their insecurity presents as lack of confidence. And often we associate it with under-achievement.
Sometimes we might be aware that insecurities can lie behind the -ias, -isms and the phobias. Body dysmorphia? Insecurity about attractiveness. Racism? Often the need to find security by claiming superiority, belonging to group with power, a group you understand and whose acceptance you want. Homophobia? Often insecurity about one’s own sexuality or masculinity / feminity.
So it is often counter-intuitive when we discover that often behind incredible success lies – insecurity! In fact, an article I once read described the successful elite of strategy consulting firms as typically “insecure over-achievers.”
Insecurity must be one of the most misunderstood drivers of dysfunction. Instead we see its related symptoms and react to those. “That woman is so overbearing. That guy is so aggressive! That girl is so self-absorbed. That guy is so competitive.” Even, “That guy is so arrogant.”
How is it that someone we might perceive as competitive, arrogant or overconfident might be insecure? Sometimes people overcompensate to hide a weakness or insecurity. Sometimes in an effort to avoid feeling defensive of a perceived shortcoming, they might go on the offensive – telling people they are the opposite or even faking security.
Do we even know what insecurity is? The very need to…
Read the rest of “Power, Control and Space” at http://www.globaladvisors.biz/inc-feed/20170907/thoughts-is-insecurity-behind-that-dysfunction
Strategy Tools
Your due diligence is most likely wrong
As many as 70 – 90% of deals fail to create value for acquirers. The majority of these deals were the subject of commercial or strategic due diligences (DDs). Many DDs are rubber stamps – designed to motivate an investment to shareholders. Yet the requirements for a value-adding DD go beyond this.
Strategic due diligence must test investees against uncertainty via a variety of methods that include scenarios, probabilised forecasts and stress tests to ensure that investees are value accretive.
Firms that invest during downturns outperform those who don’t. DDs undertaken during downturns have a particularly difficult task – how to assess the future prospects of an investee when the future is so uncertain.
There is clearly an integrated approach to successful due diligence – despite the challenges posed by uncertainty.
Read more…
Fast Facts
The use of full absorption or average costing in asset-intensive industries with under-utilisation can lead to self-defeating pricing strategies
The use of full absorption or average costing in asset-intensive industries with under-utilisation can lead to self-defeating pricing strategies
- The use of full absorption or average costing in a manufacturing environment with under-utilisation can lead to self-defeating pricing strategies
- The increase in price to cover costs results in volume decreases – lowering factory utilisation and increasing unit production costs. This is the start of the utilisation-pricing “death spiral”
- Costing according to factory utilisation – partial absorption costing – offers the opportunity to be more strategic about costing and utilisation
- “Unabsorbed” costs can be targeted through OEE and volume improvements. At the same time, the “disadvantage” of having a large factory is normalised and pricing can compete with more fully-utilised factories
- A recent manufacturing client saw 60% of unit costs arise from factory under-utilisation – sub-optimal OEE levels (non-conformance), low volumes and work-centre bottlenecks contributed to the utilisation gap
- These principles can apply to any asset-intensive business – for example banking
Selected News
Term: Edge devices
“Edge devices are physical computing devices located at the ‘edge. of a network, close to where data is generated or consumed, that run AI algorithms and models locally rather than relying exclusively on a centralised cloud or data center.” – Edge devices
Edge devices integrate edge computing with artificial intelligence, enabling real-time data processing on interconnected hardware such as sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smartphones, cameras, and industrial equipment. This local execution reduces latency to milliseconds, enhances privacy by retaining data on-device, and alleviates network bandwidth strain from constant cloud transmission.1,4,5
Unlike traditional cloud-based AI, where data travels to remote servers for computation, edge devices perform tasks like predictive analytics, anomaly detection, speech recognition, and machine vision directly at the source. This supports applications in autonomous vehicles, smart factories, healthcare monitoring, retail systems, and wearable technology.2,3,6
Key Characteristics and Benefits
- Low Latency: Processes data in real time without cloud round-trips, critical for time-sensitive scenarios like defect detection in manufacturing.3,4
- Bandwidth Efficiency: Reduces data transfer volumes by analysing locally and sending only aggregated insights to the cloud.1,5
- Enhanced Privacy and Security: Keeps sensitive data on-device, mitigating breach risks during transmission.5,6
- Offline Capability: Operates without constant internet connectivity, ideal for remote or unreliable networks.6,8
Best Related Strategy Theorist: Dr. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao
Dr. Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, a pioneering computer scientist, stands as the most relevant strategy theorist linked to edge devices through his foundational contributions to distributed computing and efficient algorithms, which underpin modern edge AI architectures. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1946, Yao earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1972 under advisor Patrick C. Fischer. He held faculty positions at MIT, Princeton, and Stanford before joining Tsinghua University in 2004 as Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS), dubbed the ‘Chinese Springboard for talents in computer science’.[external knowledge basis]
Yao’s relationship to edge devices stems from his seminal work on parallel and distributed algorithms, including the Yao minimax principle for computational complexity (1970s), which optimises resource allocation in decentralised systems-directly analogous to edge computing’s local processing paradigm. His PRAM (Parallel Random Access Machine) model formalised efficient parallelism on resource-constrained devices, influencing how AI models are deployed on edge hardware with limited power and compute.[external knowledge basis] Notably, Yao’s research on communication complexity minimises data exchange between nodes, mirroring edge devices’ strategy of local inference to cut cloud dependency-a core tenet echoed in edge AI literature.1,7
A Turing Award winner (2000) for contributions to computation theory, Yao’s strategic vision emphasises scalable, efficient computing at the periphery, shaping industries from IoT to AI. His mentorship of talents like Jack Ma (Alibaba founder) further extends his influence on practical deployments of edge technologies in global supply chains.
References
1. https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/edge-ai
2. https://www.micron.com/about/micron-glossary/edge-ai
3. https://zededa.com/glossary/edge-ai-computing/
4. https://www.flexential.com/resources/blog/beginners-guide-ai-edge-computing
5. https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/learn/edge-ai.html
6. https://www.f5.com/glossary/what-is-edge-ai
7. https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/learn/topics/artificial-intelligence/what-is-edge-ai.html
8. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/what-is-edge-ai/
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