Category Archive

Tariff outcomes are not known Tariffs were a major source of revenue for governments until 1944, when the Allies formulated a new economic structure to enable rebuilding after World War 2. However, tariffs on imports were continued by countries and can be increased and decreased for a range of reasons that last over periods of time. Whereas in 1947 the … Read More

Why use Agentic AI? The hype through 2024 was about GenAI, but sales appear to have fallen short of expectations, so in 2025 the hype has moved to Agentic AI. The level of hype is not a signal to buy, even though some software suppliers have added AI features within their applications. The previous blogpost identified Agentic AI as “a … Read More

Types of AI The consulting firm McKinsey reported in a recent survey that nearly eighty percent of companies are using gen AI – yet a similar number of organisations report no significant increase in profitability. This is the ‘AI paradox’, which is similar to the ‘Productivity paradox’ identified by the economist Robert Solowin in 1987, when the hype about computing … Read More

Uncertainty in Supply Chains Global, but potentially fragile, supply chains have been created over the past forty years. However, the assumptions of an era with relative stability and lower risks has passed, so future developments in supply chains are largely uncertain. The analysis of Risk in supply chains was discussed in the previous blogpost. This considered a period of up … Read More

A major change Although circumstances around the world are always changing, there are periods of time when more dramatic change occurs. Such a period could be now, with ‘Globalisation’ as a geopolitical objective being replaced in some countries by ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Security’. Articles and podcast express concern about the increasing uncertainties in the world that could affect commercial decisions in … Read More