If it was possible to rewind back to 1999, we’d all invest in Apple stock instead of that VHS Recorder. In a new study by SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk, we analyse the priciest stocks of 2019 and what you could have bought with $100 over the decade.
Amazon is the most expensive stock, with the average stock price calculating to a whopping $1,752 - meaning $100 couldn’t buy you any stock, whilst in the year 2000 you’d be able to afford just two.
As one of the top e-commerce platforms in the world, Amazon gets more than 197 million visitors each month, and in 2018 the company’s share of the US e-commerce market hit 49%.
Based on the average stock price of Apple in 2000, $100 could have bought you around 35 stocks, whilst this same value wouldn’t buy a single stock based on 2019’s average stock price.
Steve Job’s innovative and visionary approach led to Apple becoming one of the biggest tech giants in the world. The launch of the iPod revolutionised the portable media player market, eventually launching iTunes which essentially changed the world’s understanding of digital media and the music industry.
Who’s worth more?
Microsoft top the leaderboard this 2019, with the company’s net worth being valued at $1 trillion - one of the only three companies to pass this figure, with Apple and Amazon being the other two in recent years.
Amazon takes second place for net worth, being worth around $928.5 billion, whilst Apple follows behind on $892.1 billion.
Despite Apple taking third place for net worth, the brand still remains champion for yearly revenue. In 2018, the giant made over $265.6 million - higher than both Amazon and Microsoft who made $232.9 and $110.4 million respectively.
What are unicorns?
A unicorn business is a startup with a valuation of $1 billion, they are privately held and rely on venture capital. The name ‘unicorn’ comes from the rarity of businesses gaining such success.
Which sector is taking the lead?
Despite unicorn companies being private and not being publicly traded, if you’re hot on investment and want to keep an eye on which sectors seem to tip the edge, we’ve taken a look at the sectors which are most likely to become unicorns.
With over 360 companies being valued at $1 billion this year, the e-commerce sector took the lead, with 42 companies being declared as unicorns. This was closely followed by Fintech, which saw 39 companies join the leaderboard, whilst Internet Software & Services took third place with 32 companies.
Ian Wright from SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk stated: “Unfortunately we can’t go back in time and invest that $100 we spent on junk, in Apple or Amazon! However, this research reveals just how quickly some of these brands have grown in the last few years, and how privately held start-up companies are also experiencing huge valuations from investors taking big risks to be successful.”
Investments of the 2000s
To see how much $100 could have bought you in the 2000s, or find out more about unicorn start-ups in more detail, you can take a look at SmallBusinessPrices.co.uk’s tool here.
“In the future, robots will be doing our jobs for us” is one of the most common sentences we hear from futurists, business people and technology leaders. Below Richard Acreman, Partner at WM Reply, discusses the overvalue of automated processes and the future of ‘robots’ on the front lines of business.
There are variations on the theme depending on your perspective, like “robots are stealing our jobs” or, at the other end of the spectrum, “robots will create a revolution in creative freedom.” But while all of these predictions will probably have a strong element of truth to them over the long term, they’re also the source of a dangerous misconception in the here and now: that businesses don’t need to worry so much about talent.
Broadly speaking, the exact opposite is true, but if it’s a misconception you share, you have some prestigious company. A major piece of opinion research recently revealed the difference between the value of human capital vs. physical capital to the economy now and in the future. As part the study, two thirds of CEOs and top leaders at global firms revealed that they believed technology would create greater value for their organisations than their workforces would. Almost half believed that automation, AI and robotics would make their workforce “largely irrelevant” in the near future.
In fact, the economic modelling that accompanied the research showed that human capital would be worth more than twice as much. The key distinction is having the right skills and the right people, who are valuable both in their own right, and as the people who are going to enable the technology to enhance their organisations’ value. That means engaging with, supporting and learning from the best workers to ensure that their knowledge and expertise remains within the business and can continue to unlock the business’s potential as the workplace changes.
A key battleground
Unsurprisingly, the first place that this issue is flaring up is on the front lines of business – among the customer facing or service delivering staff that form the grass roots of most organisations. It’s this audience who are often the most threatened by automation and it’s also this audience who are traditionally most neglected by their companies.
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As the above study shows, it’s all too easy for businesses who have never been particularly strong on engaging their front line workers to take technology as an excuse for inaction or to make the situation even worse, but overestimating the scale of the change or the speed of the transition means that those with this attitude will likely have years to regret their miscalculation before anything close to the future they’d imagined comes to pass.
Why front line workers continue to be so important
Looking at it from both sides helps to clarify how misleading it can be to think that technology is going to make staff less relevant.
If we assume that technologies that are good enough to fully replace staff are here already, or very close, then we might also make the assessment that the best staff will be needed to help inform the processes and approaches of that technology, look after it, and stand in for it when it goes wrong. Not to mention the cases where it doesn’t have the answer, or is dealing with a customer who insists on human interaction.
If we assume that the technology isn’t here yet, but is coming, then this group will remain essential to the work, but exist in a heightened state of anxiety about their future with automation seemingly in hot pursuit of them. They will therefore need not just a decent level of support and attention from the business (as should be standard), but also a certain amount or additional reassurance, the absence of which might well be seen as their death knell.
People and technology in perfect harmony
What then is the short-term answer? And how can companies ensure that they are not only engaging with, but also getting the most out of their front line workers, so that the technology will have to work even harder to offer a quantifiable advantage?
That’s probably something that’s best explained with some specifics. Bea Tartsanyi, enterprise innovation strategist at Sideways 6, talking at a recent event focused around Microsoft’s Yammer, pointed out that the value of grassroots innovation to a business is immense. With the analytics that her team is developing, they’re starting to get a handle on just how important that is. She’s proving that using tools like Yammer to access the knowledge and learnings of those on the front lines – those who ordinarily might not have much of a voice internally – is not only one of the most effective, but also cost efficient ways of driving innovation.
Bea also pointed out that companies are always looking at ways to bring the voice of the customer firmly into the business. To learn from the customer’s needs and to understand the best practice approaches to meeting them. What better way to do that than to directly connect front line workers to the centralised organisation through the engaging, non-hierarchical social tools like Yammer.
It works both ways: Front line workers can easily flag some of the everyday challenges they face for senior managers to tackle, while those at the top can offer up the challenges they face. Whether those challenges come from a loyalty, cost or another perspective entirely, allowing those at the coalface to share their experience of overcoming those challenges on an individual case basis will feed into an organisation-wide benefit.
Ultimately, automation will have an important role to play, but we’re a long way from that role superseding the role of front line workers. Giving those on the ground the tools to excel at their own jobs while also feeding into the wider strategy is an immediate answer to many of the challenges that companies face. Given how much front line workers – properly enabled – can contribute, ignoring the people-based solutions to those challenges in favour of the vague idea that up and coming technologies will fill in the gap is like saying you won’t buy an umbrella because at some point in the future it might not be raining.
Billions lost, reputations ruined and company's that never recover. Business can be unforgiving. Saying yes to the wrong idea can lose you and your company millions or even result in bankruptcy and the demise of a business. So you have to make sure that the decisions you make are correct. But sometimes businesses get it very, very wrong, with disastrous consequences. So what are the worst decisions ever made in business history?
Welcome to Finance Monthly's video countdown of the Top 10 Worst Business Decisions in History. We examine the 10 most catastrophic choices made by companies ever and the effect each of these. Every one of the mergers, or new business ideas in the video above resulted in severe consequences for the parties involved, whether it be huge financial losses or reputational damage. In some cases, it was the reluctance to see a glittering opportunity in front of their own own eyes that led to the eventual demise of some of the industry's heaviest hitters. From Apple and Coca-Cola to Star Wars, we explore the business decisions that have cost companies and businessmen millions.
So sit back and enjoy our video highlighting the 10 worst business decisions ever made.
Have we missed any disastrous decisions that cost companies millions? Let us know in the comments below.
CFOs no longer rate Excel as most important skill, turning to new technologies, automation.
Adaptive Insights recently released its global CFO Indicator report, exploring finance automation progress and expectations of CFOs. The survey reveals that CFOs are embracing automation across various areas of finance, driven in large part by a requirement to be more strategic and provide better analyses. Financial reporting and period-end variance reporting top the list of automated processes today, according to the survey.
Automation initiatives are also impacting required skills for finance professionals. Whereas two years ago, 78 percent of CFOs considered proficiency in Excel as the most important skill for their FP&A teams, only 5 percent feel the same today. Looking ahead, only 7 percent of CFOs list better Excel skills as important for new hires. Instead, CFOs rated the ability to be adaptable to new technologies as the top skill for new hires, signaling a shift in desired skillsets for finance professionals in the future.
“We’ve seen CFOs increasingly take on the role of chief data officers in their organisations,” said Jim Johnson, CFO at Adaptive Insights. “At the same time, CFOs recognise the limitations in the way they manage and analyse data today and know it will only get worse with the proliferation of more systems with siloed data. That’s why Excel skills aren’t ranked as a top skill any longer. Proficiency in Excel is a given today. The new skills finance leaders need are those that can use technologies to access, analyse, and amplify data for insights to better manage the business.”
Limitations with manual processes like spreadsheets were recently documented in a Wall Street Journal article, Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staff. The article noted that ubiquitous spreadsheet software that revolutionised accounting in the 1980s hasn’t kept up with the demands of contemporary corporate finance units, citing a lack of automation.
(Source: Adaptive Insights)
We’d bet that the vast majority of people reading this, regardless of gender, race or socioeconomic background, carry the same few basic items with them at all times; a phone, some keys, a few dollars, a debit card, and maybe some I.D are all items you’d reliably expect to find if you asked an average person on the street to turn out their pockets. But what would you find if you asked a millionaire, or even a billionaire, to do the same thing? As it turns out, it would appear you’d find they’d produce more or less the same or less from their pockets as the average Joe.
