Using ‘power curves’ to assess industry dynamics

This just came in via my inbox from The McKinsey Quarterly:

Plotting the structure of industries across markets and geographies reveals a startling and increasing inequality in size and performance among even the largest companies.
What emerges is a “power curve” pattern characterized by a short “head,” comprising a few companies with extremely large incomes and quickly dropping off to a long “tail” of significantly smaller competitors.
These power curves can be a useful diagnostic tool for understanding the structural dynamics of an industry and a company’s role and options in its evolution.

Now, I am the first to admit that I am not McKinsey calibre but I am way ahead of this one as I have been analysing and presenting such curves for years.

DW

They’re Dead

I have just read the ghastly news in the FT (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/28face8a-b22e-11dd-bbc9-0000779fd18c.html) that you can have someone’s ashes turned into an artificial diamond once they have been cremated.

What on earth will they think of next?

DW

Condensation

The condensation on the windows in Kuala Lumpur forms on the outside of the windows, not indoors. The same on cars, too

How about that?

DW
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Credit Card Companies

I warned people about the problems that would follow if the credit card companies started to suffer.

Well, some CC companies are converting to banks to get access to certain forms of finance.

I keep warning you!

DW
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Snotus!

In the Low Yat Centre in Kuala Lumpur last night in a veggie restaurant when I spotted a packet of flowery/herbal tea. It was the name, however, that really caught my eye so I couldn’t resist taking its photo:

You might be able to work out that the name SNOTUS seems to come from one of its ingredients: SNOw loTUS … it could be fine in Malay and Chinese but …

 

DW

Jack … is it amazing?

I just read that the name Jack has been the top boy’s name for babies born in the UK for all of the last 13 years to the end of 2007. I find that interesting.

I read that fact in a booklet from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) where they say it is “amazing” that Jack has been number one for so long. Do YOU think it’s amazing? Are you really amazed by that?

I know some of you think I am barking mad in this respect but I wrote to the ONS asking them why they thought it was so amazing. If they reply I’ll let you know what they say!

DW

Japan Goes Bananas

Did you know that Japan is suffering from a banana crisis, according to Time magazine. Read on, then:

Japanese consumers eager to try the latest fad diet to sweep the country, the Morning Banana Diet, are finding it difficult to buy the fruit that gives the diet its name. Invented by a pharmacist to help her husband, Hitoshi, to lose weight, the Morning Banana Diet took off when he discussed his weight loss of 37 pounds on www.mixi.jp, a Japanese social networking site. When a TV show profiled an opera singer who lost 15 pounds in 6 weeks on the diet, a banana shortage was born.
Life Corporation, which runs 201supermarkets throughout Japan, has seen a 70% - 80% increase in weekly sales and Dole Japan, a leading importer, has boosted imports by 25%; and still can't keep up with demand. Books about the diet have so far sold about 730,000 copies.

Source:
"Japan Goes Bananas for a New Diet," Time magazine, October 17, 2008.

Odd that!

DW