Up, Up And Away

This edition of Now and Z/Yen is being written 6 miles above the Atlantic as a result of our recently won assignment with a group of six banks to compare processing costs for US Equities and Bonds. Jeremy Smith, who is leading the study, is holding a number of workshops with the banks in New York to finalise the study details. Jeremy has worked in New York before and sees this as a great opportunity to revisit some of his former haunts (Jeremy’s Ale house for one) and cronies. Michael also sees this as an opportunity to replenish his preppy wardrobe and has provided Jeremy with a long shopping list for Brooks Brothers. Back at home, Giles Wright is kicking off the 2003 range of European Benchmarking Studies for which 11 clients have already signed up.

Loaves And Fishes

Since landing a strategic review for the National Association of Master Bakers (don’t try to say that name while tipsy), looking at the Bakers’ Benevolent Society, Ian Harris’s puns have simply got worse. “Let’s help them raise dough” is one of his better efforts. “We’ll help them make more bread” is even more predictable. Also, Ian’s attempts at self-aggrandisement seem to know no bounds. No doubt linking “Bakers” with our strategic role with the Marine Stewardship Council, he not only refers to “loaves and fishes” all the time, he also tried to turn water into wine at the Z/Yen Christmas Party and claims to have walked back across the Thames from the South Bank venue afterwards. Hopefully our other new charity clients, Rethink (severe mental illness) and Action for Blind People will help reduce his delusion levels and increase his insight levels respectively. Seriously, this is an exciting run of new charity clients, which further reinforces Z/Yen’s position in the sector.

It Ogres Well

Z/Yen has built a large number of predictive systems over the years to help people analyse risk/reward patterns. This has led to that well-known ogre, Michael, working with that less well-known nice guy, Alan Helmore-Simpson, for the last few months on Z/Yen's Auguri research project. Auguri is a suite of statistical software that uses sophisticated techniques to classify & model multivariate data to make predictions on new data (and draw pretty pictures). Clients use Auguri to identify patterns or anomalies in order to “get a detailed grip on the big picture.” Z/Yen is already trialing Auguri on predicting television audiences, financial markets, sales targets and audit costs. And the name? No, not from "ogre", rather "Auguri" is Italian for “best wishes” or ”good omens”, and comes from an old English word “augury”, referring to the skill of Roman priests in foretelling the future.

To Boldly Benchmark

Sales & Marketing represents the largest speculative cost that any company regularly incurs. The uncharted territory of marketing is the highest organisational expenditure with the least measurable results but until now, there was very little available information to assist organisations in setting and allocating their marketing spend. As a result, Z/Yen is undertaking a survey to boldly build a Sales & Marketing Benchmark that gives companies a map of how similar businesses spend their marketing budgets. Participation in this mission is free and all fellow travellers will receive a summary of the results (additional analysis is available at a nominal fee).

Small Is Beautiful, But Struggling

Z/Yen, in conjunction with Jaffe, wrote a large report on Institutional Investment and Trading in UK Smaller Quoted Companies for the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA). QCA represents thousands of companies outside the FTSE 350, many of them on AIM and OFEX. The report highlights the difficulties that smaller companies have in gaining institutional investment and the attention of asset management firms. The report recommends (perhaps paradoxically) more government interest and less government regulation as well as easier movement across markets and increased promotion to fund managers. The report is freely downloadable from the Z/Yen website.