Many people in business are familiar with the Pareto 80/20 Rule, particularly the idea that 80% of their business comes from just 20% of customers or clients, or that 80% of their profits comes from 20% of orders, or that 80% of their profits come from 20% of products, or even that 80% of their sales are generated by 20% of their sales staff.

Understanding this can influence behaviour such as protecting the 20% that contribute the most or looking at how to improve the lower performing 80%.

Essentially the Pareto 80/20 Rule is simply a way of demonstrating that most things in life are not distributed evenly.

This can apply to everything but focuses on considering productivity as an output of time spent or as a return on investment. It looks at resources, in terms of people, time and cost with a view to optimising the output. Analysis of turnover and profits by customer, market segment and products to produce a pie chart is likely to highlight aspects of the Rule.

The 80/20 Rule...

The UK newspaper industry has faced multiple challenges for many years but somehow it manages to survive.

In many ways it is a good example of how agile a business needs to be in the 21st century if it wants to continue, to prosper and to grow.

But arguably the UK newspaper industry is more than simply a business albeit, like all businesses it needs to cover its costs and make a profit.

Relevance is critical to having and retaining readers as consumers of content in what might be assumed to be a traditional supply and demand business. At its most basic, news is about informing readers about what is happening in the world, and in the country and region in which they live and aspiring journalists in training were often told that their purpose was “to entertain, to educate and to inform”.

Nevertheless, to the accountants, newsroom journalists have increasingly been seen as a cost, a drain rather than a contributor to the business’ profits.

Indeed, relevance is...

At the start of the new decade predicting stock market behaviour is anything but an easy task.

A year ago, the pundits variously predicted that the year-end valuation of the FTSE 100 would be anywhere between 7200 and 8400 points. In the end, at close of business on 31^st December it was in the mid-7000s at 7542 below most predictions but it was still a stonking year.

Over the last year, stock market values, including the UK’s FTSE 100 and 250, have risen an astonishing amount to make 2019 one of the strongest years ever, despite a sluggish global and EU economy, US and China trade wars and Brexit uncertainty.

According to the business news two days ago the Dow Jones industrial average has seen  a rise of almost 25% having reached record highs day after day, the broader S&P500 is up 30% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq has grown 40% in value. The FTSE100 in London is also close to its record high, as is the Dax30 in Germany.

In so-called “normal” times the stock...