What colour is the dress?

 What colour is the dress? Not long ago, there was a viral Internet sensation about a dress. Depending on your brain’s wiring, you either saw it as one colour or another. It was similar to the twirling figurine, you either saw it going clockwise or anticlockwise!

 

Which do you see, downside risk or opportunity? It appears that, in a given situation, depending on your wiring, you either see downside risk or opportunity.

 

In any situation, particularly in business, we know that risk and return are intertwined. The risk arises out of the fact that in any risky asset, the expected returns are likely to be different from the actual returns, upwards or downwards. I am, however, concerned here with the likely downside risk. The higher the downside risk, the higher the expected or demanded return, and vice versa.

 

So, which strategy should you pursue? Drive down downside risk or seek a higher return? There are dangers lurking in both directions. Seeking to lower downside risk close to zero may result in missing opportunities with the highest returns, while on the other hand seeking ever higher returns may lead to reckless investing. Remember also that risk does not imply certainty, it comes with a probability of occurrence, while expected (risky) returns are also not always guaranteed.

 

Strictly speaking, of course, it bears mentioning that risk in general, downside or upside, is also dependent on your vantage point. For example, looking at a firm, are you an investor or a manager? It bears mentioning, as well, that if you seek to lower your downside risk to zero, then you don’t go to Mars, neither do you build a Tesla or an iPhone, as they are all very risky ventures! 

The Law of Unintended Consequences

 The law of unintended consequences is an important concept in policy-making and implementation, and in project development and evaluation. Put simply, the law relates to the unintended results of a decision or action emanating from a policy or project. For example, building a badly needed highway, only to discover later that it bisects a wildlife migration trail or a grazing path for livestock. Of course, these are simple examples that project planners usually take into account, but they do illustrate the point.

 

The concept of unintended consequences illuminates the perverse unanticipated effects of legislation and regulation. In 1692, the English philosopher and economist John Locke urged the defeat of a parliamentary bill designed to cut the permissible rate of interest from 6 percent to 4 percent. Locke argued that instead of benefitting borrowers, as intended, it would actually hurt them. People would find ways to circumvent the law, with the costs of circumvention borne by borrowers. To the extent the law was obeyed, Locke concluded, the chief results would be less available credit and a redistribution of income away from “widows, orphans and all those who have their estates in money.”

 

The first and most complete analysis of the concept of unintended consequences was done by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1936. In an influential article titled “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action,” Merton identified five sources of unanticipated consequences. The first two, and the most pervasive, were ignorance and error. Third, “imperious immediacy of interest,” meaning that the desire for the intended consequence is so great that the potential unintended consequences are purposefully ignored. Fourth, “Basic values”, and fifth, “self-defeating prediction,” meaning the instance where the public prediction of a social development proves false precisely because the prediction changes the course of history. This is the flipside of the idea of the “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

 

The law of unintended consequences provides the basis for many criticisms of government programmes. Unintended consequences can add so much to the costs of some programmes that they make the programmes unwise even if they achieve their stated goals. And the costs needn’t be financial exclusively. At the very least, policy makers and implementers should have reason to pause before ploughing ahead with their programmes.

 

I was reminded of this concept a few days ago on reading a couple of articles appearing in the Business Day newspaper dated Tuesday, 30 March 2021. The first article, “Report shows how to get country’s infrastructure delivery going,” contained a very illuminating comment. The sentence in question, “Probes of anticompetitive behaviour in those boom years and the resultant fines weakened many of the largest construction giants…” caught my attention because I was in the thick of it in those days post the FIFA World Cup construction boom. Although I wasn’t an accused personally, the very successful company I was working for was, and a number of my colleagues became sacrificial lambs as they were either demoted or forced into early retirement. Rigorous and sustained competition law training followed, and constant nervousness and diffidence lengthened marketing and sales cycles. Once great companies, and the groups to which they belonged, started on downward spirals, resulting in job losses and loss of engineering capacity for the country. While I am generally supportive of anti-competitive legislation, it’s undeniable that perhaps in this case, where I have first knowledge, the unintended consequences were disastrous.

 

The second article, “Power ships a worse nightmare for SA than stalling planes,” relates to a plan to park four power ships off the coast of South Africa to provide much needed backup because of the constant load-shedding being experienced by citizens and industry. This is clearly a drastic development, one that is very embarrassing and distressing. The constant management and board shakeups that Eskom has undergone, ostensibly with the aim to rid the state-owned company of corruption, have clearly had a very big unintended consequence. While the jury is still out on the intended aim to rid the company of corruption (after all, a number of subsequent CEO’s and Chairman have had to be subsequently got rid of for similar reasons), it is undeniable that while for some time there was a respite from load-shedding, it has returned with a vengeance, and the alleged twenty-year contracts for the power ships don’t bode well for any immediate end to load-shedding. I am not here defending past CEO’s or boards, merely pointing out analytically the unintended results of the decisions to remove them.

Butterfly wings

Each of us has an ability to influence things, whether it be in a small way around us, or in a big way that affects the course of history. We all get small moments where our decisions and actions may matter. If we choose to act, change happens. However, frequently, we choose not to, whether out of deference or simple inertia. 

 

I recently had a discussion with a good friend on just this issue. Although we were both broadly in agreement, he, however, said that his process is to evaluate first whether or not his intervention will have an impact. If he feels it won’t, then he does nothing. I guess you can see the flaw in this? Often, we don’t really know if our actions will have an impact. You only see after the fact whether or not change did happen. Inaction, therefore, sounds like a cop-out.

 

John Maxwell, the leadership expert, has made the point that leadership is not about titles, that often in organisations the leader is not really the person with the title. You have to look elsewhere to discern who the leader is. This is the same about impact. It’s not always, even not necessarily, the titled big people who end up having the big impact. Take the case of Greta Thunberg, for instance. Or Malala Yousafzai. Just kids, but their impact reverberated around the world.

 

Just like the proverbial wings of the butterfly, your small actions can start a storm. 

CJ Mogoeng and his foot-in-mouth moments

 It can’t be argued that we didn’t know what we were getting when President Zuma decided to appoint Mogoeng as the CJ of South Africa. Mogoeng was apparently already well-known among the judiciary for his strong religious beliefs, and he certainly didn’t hide his position during his public interview.

 

I have, in fact, been a supporter of the CJ since he was appointed. He is, however, off the mark on Israel, and his pronouncements on the COVID vaccine were bizarre, to say the list. 

 

While I have no quarrel with his strong religious beliefs, after all, as he himself asserts, this is guaranteed in the best constitution in the world, I have a problem with his naïveté. On the one hand, he allows himself to be used by the Israeli lobby, while on the other he espouses cultish beliefs. This wouldn’t matter much from an ordinary person or a minor leader, but to be coming from the CJ of the country, especially while acting in his official capacity, is problematic.

 

Although he has opted to challenge the sanction of the JCC on his Israel pronouncements, he would do himself a great deal of good if he simply apologised and moved on.

Mthokozisi Ntumba: Stop arming police during peaceful civil protests!

Numerous times police actions during civil protests have resulted in deaths or serious injuries on the part of protesting citizens and bystanders. Surely, enough is enough?!

A number of points need to be made in addressing this issue.

First, our police are clearly sadly untransformed, despite having Black leadership. Black leadership seemingly will never guarantee transformation, as long as the police tactics, methodologies and tools are the same as they were under Apartheid.

Second, clearly our police don’t have a clue about dealing with peaceful civil demonstrations. Under Apartheid, the then government and their police force didn’t care for Black demonstrators, because for them they were the ‘enemy’ (as wrong as that thinking was). Using armed force, therefore, seemed ‘justified’, and in any case they didn’t care about the loss of Black lives or well-being. Human rights were non-existent.

In a democracy, however, that dichotomy doesn’t and shouldn’t exist. Moreover, the role of the police is not just to protect property, but more importantly to protect the lives and well-being of citizens, both the protesters and non-protesters. Participating in a protest doesn’t suddenly remove or reduce one’s constitutional rights; in fact, the very act of peaceful protest is protected by the constitution. 

However, coming armed to a protest clearly belies this. It appears that our police view Black demonstrators in similar fashion as happened under Apartheid, as the ‘enemy’. It appears the default position of the police is always to come to a protest to 'kick-ass'.

It is high time for the government and parliament to take drastic steps to create a new policing paradigm fit for a human rights culture. This includes retraining the police command, but also more critically, ensuring that police deployed to a civil protest are never ever armed, not even with rubber bullets.

How to Prepare a Feasibility Study

 Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 06 – 08 April 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R6,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments may be made at paypal.me/msinsi. 

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 26 February 2021.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 12 March 2021.

 

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

 

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/how-to-prepare-a-feasibility-study/

New!...

Quantitative Techniques in Marketing

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 04 – 05 May 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R3,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 26 March 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 09 April 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/quantitative-techniques-in-marketing/

Finance training courses

 Sandstorm Finance Academy Training Courses for 2021

 

Good Day

 

Sandstorm Finance Academy is delighted to invite you and your colleagues to participate in our training courses for 2021. Please see the information below and visit each webpage for full details on each course.

 

In difficult times successful organisations engage in more, not less, training in order to equip their employees to be more creative and innovative and be better able to weather the storms. Only such organisations emerge stronger on the other side and are better positioned to thrive in the new paradigm.

 

For your peace of mind, we offer a 30-Days Money Back Guarantee! If you are not happy with your course, for whatever reason, you can claim a full refund of your fees within 30 days, no questions asked!

 

The training courses will be offered virtually via Zoom, while two of the courses, Practical Project Evaluation & Appraisal and Business Modelling & Analysis, are also available online at https://sandstormfinanceacademy.teachable.com for self-study.

 

We have selected Zoom as a generalised and popular platform. For in-house training, however, we are able to utilise your platform of choice, be it Teams, Skype or any other platform.

 

Who should attend? These courses are mainly targeted at professionals in the following fields:

 

·      Finance, Business Development, Engineering, Contracting, Entrepreneurs, Consultants, Freelancers.

·      Project Development, Project Finance, Banking, Development Finance.

·      Investment, Treasury, Government, NGO’s.

 

The goal is to equip your employees with skills and tools to simplify their work and their lives. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. 

 

We look forward to welcoming you on one of our training courses.

 

Please review brief profiles of the courses below...

How to Prepare a Feasibility Study

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 06 – 08 April 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R6,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments may be made at paypal.me/msinsi. 

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 26 February 2021.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 12 March 2021.

 

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

 

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/how-to-prepare-a-feasibility-study/

 

---

 

Practical Project Evaluation and Appraisal

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 13 – 15 April 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R6,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments may be made at paypal.me/msinsi. 

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 05 March 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 19 March 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors. 

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

 

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/practical-project-evaluation-and-appraisal/

 

Online Academy

If you prefer to learn at your own pace, please visit our online academy at https://sandstorm-finance-academy.teachable.com for registration and payment. Take advantage of the much lower price and register now!

 

---

 

Business Modelling in Excel and VBA Macros

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 20 – 22 April 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R6,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 12 March 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 26 March 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/business-modelling-in-excel-and-vba/

 

Online Academy

If you prefer to learn at your own pace, please visit our online academy at https://sandstorm-finance-academy.teachable.com for registration and payment. Take advantage of the much lower price and register now!

 

---

 

How to Build a Business Case for a Project

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 27 – 28 April 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R2,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 19 March 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 02 April 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/how-to-prepare-a-winning-business-case-for-a-project/

 

---

 

Finance for Non-financial Executives

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 29 – 30 April 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R2,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 19 March 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 02 April 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/finance-for-non-financial-executives/

 

---

 

Masterclass in Applied Corporate Finance

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 13 – 14; 20 – 21; 27 – 28 May 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R9,990 per person or register and pay per module (no closing date): Part I, Part II and Part III: R3,790 each.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 26 March 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 09 April 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/masterclass-in-applied-corporate-finance/

 

---

 

How to Analyse Companies

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 08 – 09 June 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R4,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.  

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 30 April 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 14 May 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/how-to-analyse-companies/

 

---

 

How to Value Any Business

Zoom Virtual Training

Date: 22 – 24 June 2021; Time: 10:00 – 13:00; 14:00 – 16:00 daily; Price: R6,990 per person.

Terms and Conditions: 

·      Payments will be through our PayPal gateway at paypal.me/msinsi.

·      A 20% early-bird discount is available for registrations and payments up to 14 May 2021. Please calculate and pay 20% less on the above-quoted price.

·      Registrations and payments will close on 28 May 2021.

Course Benefits

·      To company: Empower your employees with practical training that they can immediately apply at work and increase their productivity, improve decision-making, and reduce potentially costly errors.

·      To employees: In addition to the above, immediately delight your bosses and colleagues with your improved practical skill-set and expanded analytical repertoire, and thereby enhance your career prospects.

Registration and Course Details

For more details and to register, please follow the link: https://sandstormfinanceacademy.com/how-to-value-any-business/

 

---