Burning Ideas

Substantial markets can be revealed by a number of estimation techniques. One very powerful approach is the use of scenarios. Scenarios comprise a forecasting technique that requires managers to write explicit anticipated futures and articulate the chains of events that would need to occur to make the future happen. For example, Royal Dutch Shell tuned its supply strategy when its scenario process in 1973 found no compelling reasons for Arab states to increase their crude oil production. Furthermore, some of the authors helped an environmental management company determine the market for certain types of training. The task involved getting accurate counts of employees in different industries who handled hazardous and toxic materials, plus an assessment of the likelihood of new government regulations that—by fiat or new economic sanctions— would impact the training demand.
A related approach involves hard thinking and analysis of how the product fits into the value-added process. This approach is sometimes called the buildup approach or factoring. Market estimates by this approach come from building up the materials or parts units needed in a specific application or from specific accounts. For example, potential demand for a surgical staple designed for closing Caesarian sections can be estimated from a count of the average number of staples needed to close a typical Csection, times the number of C-sections performed in different countries. Projections in each country are apt to show different trends, based on differences in hospital protocols, fertility patterns, and population distributions.
The same basic approach can be applied using survey responses from prospects or from members of the sales force. Likewise, the volume of certain materials, logistical services, or MRO (maintenance, repair and operating) goods can be compared to finished products output in a statistical series. A statistical series is an estimation technique that uses the correlation between demand and some other set of economic activities to yield a forecast.

Ishy is 8 years old, she is my niece. She loves extra curricular activities. I wonder what kind of workshop she’s into this time. She said “Yoga”. Yoga for pre-school children? Well yes, it is adapted for pre-schoolers. My cousin (mother of Ishy) said it develops body awareness, language, good listening skills, cooperation and powers of observation. It also teaches pre-school children about nature, their environment and inspires their imaginations. It prepares them for breathing techniques used in yoga. For pre-schoolers this is an ideal time to begin yoga practice. Yoga for school aged children balances quiet and active poses with game playing, singing, storytelling, drawing, simple breath meditations and rest. They say that children can easily follow the teachers instructions by learning the names of different body parts, their locations and function. As they learn the names of the postures and movements they develop a yoga vocabulary. They can use their yoga poses to play games, take on the qualities of different animals or use their imaginations to make stories about animals on the farm etc. Yoga for children is challenging, exciting and rewarding. I am really encouraged by the positive results, both physical and emotional as I observed with my niece who take yoga regularly. No wonder why she never missed a single session every Saturdays even she had a whole week of school. I am also excited to enroll my son to yoga workshops or classes soon.