Archive for April 10th, 2013

Nums: Ask why … not just how many.

April 10, 2013

Some highlights from an HBR article:  The Hidden Biases in Big Data 

These days the business and management science worlds are focused on how large datasets can decode consumers’ behavior patterns … enabling marketers to laser-target high potential prospects with finely-honed messages, offers, and “attention”.

“Big data” … becomes problematic when it adheres to “data fundamentalism” … the notion that correlation always indicates causation, and that massive data sets and predictive analytics always reflect objective truth … that  “with enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.”

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Big data has hidden biases in both collection methods and analysis …

(more…)

Nums: What do corps do with their cash?

April 10, 2013

Well, besides sitting on it – on-shore or off-shore — corporations have five basic uses for the cash that they bring in:

  1. share buybacks;
  2. dividends;
  3. acquisitions;
  4. research and development;
  5. capital expenditures

Bellow is Goldman Sachs’ estimate of the split.

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Source

Bottom line: about a 60% – 40% split between growth (acquisitions, R&D, and CapEx .… and shareholder distributions (stock buybacks & dividends).

Historically, the split was more like 75%  – 25%.

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