Perspectives

Changed, by Nigel Lake

Change is everywhere, yet often lurks invisible. Sitting at my local café, its obvious that interior design has evolved over the last twenty years – and traffic lights too – but superficially the other shifts are tiny. The trees have grown noticeably, and the occasional new building has sprung up, but the streetscape remains thoroughly familiar.

Look a little closer, and of course the situation is very different. Though I’m writing with an old-fashioned pen and paper, smartphones are ubiquitous and laptops are more common than newspapers at neighbouring tables. Almost every shop has gone, replaced by cafés, restaurants and other purveyors of services rather than goods. The ‘milk’ in my cup is made from oats, and in front of me an electric car is charging silently.

Please click the thumbnail to the right for access to the Pottinger Perspective.

Click to view

Conventional business decision-making places a huge emphasis on the short term, thanks to the mathematics that is hard-wired into discounted cash flow valuation methodologies. This approach is, however, fundamentally flawed. By lumping all risk into a discount rate - rather than explicitly evaluating each risk - the future is made to disappear. This dramatically undervalues both long-term risk and long-term reality. If you want to stress test this idea, just ask any any sophisticated futures and options trader how they assess value. For more on this, please read our white paper on how to "End Accidental Time Bias" (click image to download).

Dawn Patrol, by Nigel Lake

A year has passed since the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak first began to be seriously felt in the West. For most, it has been a challenging year both at work and at home, and plenty of uncertainties still lie ahead. Nevertheless, technological development has continued apace, not least with the development of multiple vaccines in record time.

Meanwhile, the immediate pressure on businesses and governments to deliver short-term results remains as high as ever, making it hard to find time to position your business – or country – for what lies ahead in 2022 and beyond. That said, powerful technological shifts are happening in several major industry sectors, creating opportunity for those that can find the time to think through the implications and begin to act.

In Dawn Patrol, Nigel Lake share’s his perspectives on what is unfolding and how best to ride the technological waves as they build momentum.

Read on>>>