Peering Clearly at the Future

Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are in the business of predicting the future. In order for young companies to grow and thrive, they must develop the products and services that meet the needs of future customers in markets that change over time. While some entrepreneurs are enormously successful based on luck, starting the perfect product at the right time based on a hunch, others are more scientific about how they predict market dynamics and plan new product offerings. For venture capitalists, whose objective is to regularly finance successful emerging businesses and to minimize business failures, a thorough and replicable forecasting methodology is a powerful tool…


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The Devil Is in the Detailing

Executives who strive to improve the effectiveness and lower the costs of their businesses are often frustrated by the fact that they have run out of ideas. In fact, opportunities can often be uncovered by diving down to the details. In pharmaceutical industry, for instance, marketing efforts usually focus on physicians who prescribe higher volumes of drugs. However, an analysis of prescription data suggests pharmaceutical companies should focus on a more refined target: heavy prescribers who treat higher percentages of new patients, since patients are seldom switched to a different drug within a specific drug class, even if they switch doctors and the likelihood that a physician will choose the last drug prescribed for a patient is greater than 90%...


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