When Predictive Analytics is Just Forecasting

The term Big Data and Predictive Analytics are quite the rage these days. Colleges and universities are offering degrees in analytics. Consultants are offering services and dashboard software to help their clients be on top of their Big Data and Analytic game. Companies are creating Analytic departments led by either managers, directors, and even VPs. There is a fair amount of buzz in this area.

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Annals of Quality

We had bought a laptop in 2009. It was purchased at Best Buy and configured with a few add ons by the Geek Squad: their technical services and support arm. They loaded Windows and Kaspersky 2010, a virus protection software. Every year on June 23rd, the Kaspersky software subscription had to be renewed with an online payment. As the software was originally bought and installed by the Geek Squad, the annual subscription payment was made on Kaspersky portal on their web page.

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Crisis = Danger + Opportunity

There are a lot of great examples, anecdotes, quotes, and adages we used every day to educate or make a point when we are consulting or teaching teams about business in general or continuous improvement specifically. Some of our favorites include:

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Wal-Mart Stumbling?

Really? Wal-Mart stumbling? This is exactly what was reported in the May 16, 2014 Wall Street Journal. The lead story in the Marketplace section was: Wal-Mart Takes Another Hit on Sales Fifth Quarterly Decline in a Row Comes With Forecast of Further Weakness

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Planned Obsolescence

What is Planned Obsolescence? We tend to view it as something businesses do to make us buy more of their product. It is worth looking at formal definition: A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again.

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