• STRATEGIC PLANNING TYPICALLY NEGLECTS ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC RISKS which, over the past decade, have accounted for 86% of significant losses in company Valuation, according to a study published in Harvard Business Review. Strategic RISKS involve “external conditions that threaten to challenge the logic of a Company’s strategy… and could potentially disrupt” the business. Those threats come predominantly from four dimensions: (1) Unwillingness to tackle tough issues of uncertainty – particularly Succession and Continuity in event of crisis; (2) inexactitude of current assumptions which underlie present strategic vision; (3) future risks which arise from the “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of a world fast-changing” which could impact viability of current strategy; and (4) an “overly-aggressive agenda of priorities leading to initiative overload” resulting in ineffective execution of strategy. ‘Failing to Plan is planning to fail’; DCG have decades of experience and expertise in building and maintaining stability. [FINANCIAL EXECUTIVES.ORG – Jan 26, 17]
  • “A SAD TRUTH: AMERICA IS CURRENTLY FIGHTING ITS SECOND CIVIL WAR. In fact, with the obvious and enormous exception of attitudes toward slavery, Americans are more divided morally, ideologically and politically today than they were during the Civil War… This Second Civil War, fortunately, differs in another critically important way: It has thus far been largely nonviolent. But given increasing left-wing violence — such as riots, taking over of college presidents’ offices and illegal occupation of state capitols — nonviolence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic. There are those on both the left and right who call for American unity. But these calls are either naive or disingenuous. Unity was possible between the right and liberals, but not between the right and the left.”  [DENNIS PRAGER – JAN 25, 17]
  • ‘ALTERNATIVE FACTS’ – BUZZWORD OF THE SEASON – ARE NOT A NEW INVENTION. Sales puffery is how sales people and politicians have been grabbing buyers & voters’ attention ad infinitum, with ‘shock and awe.’ Surprisingly surprising to some, we “suddenly have a President using his soap box to advance an agenda fueled by bluster and exaggerated claims that, in the process, is creating a soap opera of global proportions.” The current trends which have brought this to public furor are primarily that: (1) people increasingly get their ‘facts’ not from journalistic institutions (once perceived as neutral and ‘truthful’) but from many overtly biased sources and, particularly, from Social Media – where ”many are walking around with their finger on the trigger of a cellphone camera, eager to play a role in reporting their perception of The Truth”; and (2) people generally seek information that reinforces what they already believe (called Confirmation Bias), “gravitating to noise that best reflects their own values, versus thoughtful discourse.” Ultimately, if/when measures produce results, and voters feel their lives have been improved, all of the “tongue-wagging and eye-rolling” in response to which blurbs of information did or did not sway their ‘purchase’ decision will have almost certainly become irrelevant. [ELECTRONIC RETAILING ASS’N BLOG – Jan 27,17]  
  • THE LATEST POLITICAL PREDICTOR FOR ANY GIVEN COUNTY is “whether it is home to a Whole Foods supermarket, purveyor of heirloom tomatoes and gluten-free dog biscuits to the Subaru-owning classes; or to a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, a restaurant chain that offers chicken & dumplings and other comfort foods to mostly rural, often southern customers.” Trump’s vote spreads were 76% in Cracker Barrel counties to 22% of Whole Food counties – a 54 percentage point gap, versus Mr. Obama’s 43% Whole Food over Cracker Barrel gap in 2008 and Mr. Bush’s 31% gap in 2000.  [THE ECONOMIST – Jan 28, 17]
  • BE AWARE: CALIFORNIA PROP 64 (1) permits the growing, possession and recreational use of marijuana over age 21 in a private home for personal use, but prohibits smoking while driving a vehicle, in all public places, anywhere that prohibits smoking tobacco, or possession on school or youth center grounds while children are present; (2) allows employers to test workers for marijuana use before hiring them, or at any point during employment “if there is a reasonable suspicion of impairment and, it they test positive, allows termination even if there is no indication they were actually impaired on the job.” [LINERLAW NWSLTR – Feb 1, 17]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

        For perspective on the absurdly politicized and INANE hypocrisy about securing the U.S. border with a wall – see Bill Clinton’s attitude when he was President: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxMTh_UzHM&feature=youtu.be ; and, if curious about existing law regarding “Inadmissible Aliens”:  https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182

       For perspective on the full-speed-ahead Technology Trends which are literally transforming humanity – from Peter Diamandis,  Exec Chairman of Singularity University (a Silicon Valley institution that “studies exponentially growing technologies, their ability to transform industries and solve humanity’s grand challenges”): file:///C:/Users/Dennis%20Duitch/Downloads/Diamandis_Top10TechTrends.compressed.pdf