Strategic tools for the practising manager

KIT

The total value of the bags market in urban India for the youth is estimated at Rs 1,470 crore a year.

The market for gym bags is 7 per cent of the total bags market and is valued at Rs 125 crore.

The total volume of the gym bags market in urban India is estimated at 0.12 crore units a year, which is 9 per cent of the total market for bags.

On an average, men spend Rs 545 a unit on gym bags while women spend Rs 840 a unit.

Sixty-four per cent of consumers prefer buying gym bags from exclusive brand outlets.

Thirty-seven per cent of consumers prefer shopping at malls when they want to purchase gym bags.

NUGGETS
Selections from management journals

Prediction markets, which aggregate information dispersed across organisations, produce forecasts that are usually at least as accurate as those of experts.

In this roundtable, practitioners from Best Buy and Google, the author of a book about collective intelligence, and a professor of law discuss the potential of prediction markets and the main obstacles they must surmount to become a more widely used tool for making strategic decisions.

One obstacle is that prediction markets challenge basic assumptions about expertise, power and the way organisations should work. The other is uncertainty about the impact of securities and gambling laws on these markets.

The promise of prediction markets: A roundtable
The McKinsey Quarterly,
April 2008
Read this article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com

Despite the general understanding that leaders learn from experience, only a few organisations, such as Toyota, Boeing and General Electric, have truly taken it to heart by putting programmes into place specifically to take advantage of experiential learning.

Most companies stay within a narrow comfort zone. They certainly encourage aspiring and emerging leaders to