Read that Graph CAREFULLY

Everyone here knows that I find it difficult to respect a man who feels able to spend $1,600,000,000 on his own job interview expenses but even Obama needs some protection from the badly drawn graphs and charts. Even the Financial Times can get it wrong!

Here is a graph cut and pasted from yesterday's Financial Times:

How about the corrected version where the vertical axis is NOT chopped off just below the half way point ... no such a drastic change over the year is it?

This post was also uploaded to Duncan's Diurnal Diatribe

DW

Follow your own advice laddie

I wish I had!

Just before he set off on a monster trip of the Far East, my nephew asked me for some advice. He wanted to know the best strategy for foreign exchange for his trip: he asked about taking dollars, traveller's cheques and so on. I told him, whatever you do DO NOT get your currency here in the UK.

As I was leaving Dubai I checked the rates there as I had a little bit of foreign currency with me. Why oh why did I not follow my own advice? I ran out of time and opportunity to change my money in the end although I did change a little bet at Dubai International Airport. The rate there was a bit worse than I would have got in town but I changed it.

Anyway, when I got to the bank here at home I found their rate was £:$ of 1.74 ... in Dubai the rate at the time I SHOULD have changed my money was £:$ 1.61.

Just imagine I was changing $1,000 ... in Dubai I would have got £621, here in Halifax I would have got £575, a difference of £46.

Don't do what I do, do what I say! What a clot I am!!

DW

Fantastic Communication of Numbers

Part of the way through reading the FT I came to a pointer that said, take a look at CEO pay in the oil and gas industry. The link that follows takes you to that page and it's excellent.

An apparently basic and simple chart but you can change the axes in real time, as they say. You can sort the order in which information is presented and clicking on a bubble in the chart will open up and page that flies in to give you a lot more information about the CEO you just click on!

Take a look at www.ft.com/ceo-pay and see what you think.

Duncan Williamson

The Financial Times REALLY Comes Alive

I have been a premium subscriber of the FT for quite a while now and have benefitted from online access, daily emails, an iPod FT Reader and so on ever since. Now, though, I can read a full facsimile version of the paper online every day.

Looks like a fantastic service.

Duncan Williamson

Here's a Tip!

There is some excellent news for anyone connected with an industry where it is traditional to give someone a tip for services.

I only learned relatively recently that it was accepted that people in pubs, restaurants and hotels who receive tips can be paid less than the minimum wage with the difference being made up with the tips they receive.

The benefit of that system was that employers gained and any advantage gained by the employees was stolen from them.

Well, there is good news from 1st October 2009! This is from the UK Government web site, direct.gov.uk

Changes to the law on tips

It will now be illegal for businesses to bring staff pay up to minimum wage levels using tips.

Derek Simpson, Unite joint-general secretary, said:"The Code launched today will help consumers see where the money left for good service is going. Unite wants to see all employers sign up to the Code and ensure that their staff and customers can be confident that staff are treated fairly."

The code of practice will be monitored with a review in one year's time.

See http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_181003

It is a disgrace that the previous situation was ever allowed to exist but now it has gone.

Duncan Williamson

T Rex to take over at M&S

At last that very ordinary man at M&S, Stuart Rose, has found a successor but it's rather an odd choice. While the British press is calling Marc Bolland the £1 billion man, people of my age will know him as a singer with the pop group T Rex from the 1970s.

And here he is: Marc Bolan, the photo ... sorry but the usually reliable Live Writer won't let me add a hyperlink here apart from this one ... http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/7/9/7/5/16295797-16295800-slarge.jpg

Duncan Williamson

A Smoother and more Productive POSITIVE Meeting

We had a meeting at work today on a topic that not everyone knew much about at the beginning of the meeting. Knowing that the topic could have been buried under a welter of negativity I suggested to the chairman that we split the meeting into two parts:

• positive comments only
• negative comments allowed

That is what we did and everyone stuck to the spirit of the split and the negative aspects of the meeting were relegated to the final 5% of it. The outcome was that the meeting was much more productive and, shall we say, positive?

I was very happy with that!

Duncan Williamson

RBS and Bradford and Bingley Class Actions

Interesting developments worthy of a mention are that some shareholders in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Bradford and Bingley are working on a class action for misleading them in prospectuses leading shareholders to subscribe to rights issues.

I have had a look at the RBS shareholders' action group web site and whilst there are some good details there, there does not seem to have been much to report there since August. Still, more power to them if their cases are valid and they make some good progress: this assumes that the shareholders were misled and so on.

For the RBS Action Group web site: http://www.rbsactiongroup.co.uk/

The B&B shareholders' action group has put together a similar case and similar web site and their site seems to contain a lot more up to date information and news. Not that that necessarily means anything. Also, the feel of this site is less professional looking than the RBS action group site: again, that might mean little of substance but I noticed it!

The B&B action group web site is here: http://www.uksa.org.uk/BradfordBingley.htm and you might notice that it is being hosted by the UK Shareholders' Association, which is the leading independent organisation which represents the interests of private shareholders in the United Kingdom.

Now that I have been to the B&B action group site I see there is a site for Lloyds' Bank shareholders as well as for Northern Rock.

Well, could be worth watching this development after all.

Duncan Williamson

Who said railways are dead?

In the business section of today's Gulf Today newspaper there is an update on the development of a railway network for the Gulf.

Between them the UAE and Saudi Arabia are to spearhead a new $20 - 25 billion railway network that will take in their two territories plus Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.

The proposal is for a 1,940 kilometre network that would run diesel powered rolling stock and carry passengers and freight at speeds of up to 200 kph for the passengers.

Whilst it is not yet clear whether it is part of the larger network, the report infers that the newly opened Dubai Metro network is a beginning of thinking about this new railway network.

All being well, work will start on this new network in 2010 - 2011 and I would love to be a passenger at some stage: a forthcoming great railway journey of the world, no doubt.

Duncan Williamson

Oh! Willie, Willie!

I've found another Stuart Rose: remember Rose is that unusual man in charge of Marks and Spencer about whom I have written quite a bit.

Well, here's another man in the same mould: Willie Walsh, boss of British Airways.

Over the summer Walsh asked his staff to work for nothing for a month. He needed to save £1 billion and his initiative saved around £10 MILLION.

Anyway, he has gone one better. Taking a leaf from the low cost airlines' book, Walsh is reported to be wanting anyone who wants to pre book their seat to have to pay for the privilege. No one wants to do that. NO ONE!

Hold on, it gets worse: he even wants business class passengers to pay as much as £70 to pre book their seat!! Remember, while you and I pay, say, £200 - £500 for a medium/long haul seat, business class passengers might be paying £1,000 - £5,000 for their seat. Does any rational person think that asking those people to pay even more for less value is an attractive addition to their business model?

Remember also that he is doing this at a time when business class passengers are relatively scarce. What is this man thinking?

Time for a change? I'll do it!

Duncan Williamson

The Bonus Culture

As the members of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh are about to come to some decision on executive pay and bonuses, I prepared a report for a client on the topic of what I called the bonus culture.

I think it is a good essay that is full of the key ideas with some of my own observations. It is also up to date and thought provoking.

Go here to read what I have written: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/bonus_culture.html

 

Duncan Williamson

Excel 2007 with Excel Master

It's official: I can now reveal the address of my new web site. This is the web site for my up and coming book which will be called Excel 2007 with Excel Master.

The site is up and running but it is a work in progress at the time of writing. There are some good and useful things there already but there are going to be a lot more.

The book is more than half written now and it's going well.

Take a look at the web site: www.excelmaster.co.uk

Let me have your feedback and let me have your ideas: if there's something you want me to do, let me know and I'll do it if I can.

Duncan Williamson

Oh, Oh! I'm in trouble

Read this semi serious executive summary from the Harvard Business School.

Executive Summary:

The notion of levying higher taxes on tall people—an idea offered largely tongue in cheek—presents an ideal way to highlight the shortcomings of current tax policy and how to make it better. Harvard Business School professorMatthew C. Weinzierl looks at modern trends in taxation. Key concepts include:

• Studies show that each inch of height is associated with about a 2 percent higher wage among white males in the United States.
• If we as a society are uncomfortable taxing height, maybe we should reconsider our comfort level for taxing ability (as currently happens with the progressive income tax).
• For Weinzierl, the key to explaining the apparent disconnect between theory and intuition starts with the particular goal for tax policy assumed in the standard framework. That goal is to minimize the total sacrifice borne by those who pay taxes.
• Behind the scenes, important trends are evolving in tax policy. Value-added taxes, for example, are generally seen as efficient by tax economists, but such taxes can bear heavily on the poor if not balanced with other changes to the system.

Don't believe that I got that from the HBS? Go to this web site then. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6258.html 

Duncan Williamson

This could be the last time

Here is a post from my Personal Blog: Duncan's Diurnal Diatribe at http://duncanwil.blogspot.com

I am reviewing my online presence as I am now running three web sites. www.duncanwil.co.uk, my original web site; www.excelmaster.co.uk is NEW and I am putting a lot of effort into it; www.oxbow.org.uk is being allowed to die as it was a commercial venture that didn't work I'm afraid.

I also manage two blogs: this one and Duncan's Diacritical Discussion, my business blog.

I have been checking the world's response to this blog and it is woeful: I am gathering readership figures now but no one is linking to it and there are only two followers. If the readership is as low as I fear it might be, this blog will cease to be by the end of this month if not sooner!

In spite of that I do enjoy putting the blog together and will probably continue to do that privately if this one has to go.

My business blog will probably stay as I want to use a blog with excelmaster.co.uk. Alternatively, the business blog will go and a new one, based on Microsoft Excel, will replace it.

DW

The Direct Method

I think I have seen my first ever published Direct Method Statement of Cash Flows. Galp Energia 2008 annual report and accounts if you want to take a look yourself.

Duncan Williamson


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Good for Everyone?

I see a Court in the USA has upheld a ruling that Microsoft has blatantly ignored someone else's Patent as it produced and sold Word 2003 and 2007 and has been given a fine of $240 million plus a cease and desist order.

Good! Let them learn some manners.

Duncan Williamson



Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Rational Behaviour Mr Walsh?

Willie Walsh must have a bit of a death wish these days. The chairman of British Airways has just worked free of charge for a month and saved his company one twelfth of around £730,000 salary costs plus attendant on costs, I think.

Yesterday I read that the airline has just announced a loss of £94 million for the latest quarter. Moreover, Walsh has bemoaned the loss of Business and First Class passengers over the course of the recession and significant down turn in the numbers of passengers.

Walsh's suggestions for cost cutting? Drop the level of services to business class passengers.

Doh!

All airlines and airline analysts say that business and first class passengers are the source of all airline industry profits (I have never seen the PROOF of that by the way and have some doubts about such a sweeping assertion). To cut the levels of service to such passengers is sheer folly then as I have not seen any related cuts in these passengers' fares.

Anyone care to correct/update/upgrade my knowledge? I would be grateful and would publish it here.

Otherwise, Willie Walsh seems to be settling very firmly into the same mould as that Stuart Rose at M&S.

Duncan Williamson

My Spreadsheet Book

A few people are asking me about the progress of my latest book: working title is Spreadsheeting with Mr Sprite.

Good news: I have completed around 7 or 8 chapters now and have carried out my research and preparations for a few more. The book is aimed at Excel 2007 and is a comprehensive introduction to it. More than that, it includes a number of practical examples that people can use as templates for real life work. I am collaborating on part of the book with a manpower planning specialist (the world's number one, no less) and he is giving me material and ideas for what to include in that section.

I am aware that Microsoft is within a year or so of releasing Excel 2010 so I am keen to ensure I get in well ahead of that deadline!

Here is the current contents page ... subject to change. If YOU would like me to include something that you cannot see here, please write to me and I will consider all suggestions. duncan at duncanwil dot co dot uk ... please interpret that! I get enough spam in my inbox so don't want to encourage any more.

Contents

Part One: Introductory

1 Basics

• Introduction
• Pencil and Paper
• Basic Functionality
• The Ribbon
• Screen Resolution
• Minimise the Ribbon
• The Quick Access Toolbar: the QAT
• Basic Rules
• Add Subtract Multiply Divide
• More Complex Calculations
• Try it!
• Built in Functions: SUM ... AVERAGE ... MIN ... MAX
• Auto Fill
• Auto Fill Menu
• Formatting Cells
• Moving Around your Workbook
• Changing Column and Row Sizes
• Moving a Column or Row
• Formatting Text
• Cell Border
• Try it!
• Consolidation Exercise
• Selecting non Contiguous Ranges
• Why Select Non contiguous Ranges?
• Print Areas
• Transposing Data
• Cell and Range Addressing
• Range Names

2 Charting

• Introduction
• The Rules of Charting
• Setting up a Chart the Easy Way: the F11 key
• Default Chart Change
• Creating a Template Char
• Embedding a Chart with the Chart Wizard
• Embedding by Moving
• Titles and Axes Labels
• Copy Charts: make clones an move them
• Other Charts
• Category Axis Contains Labels from Three Columns
• Conditional Colours
• Waterfall Chart
• Create a Stacked Column Chart
• Finished Waterfall Chart
• Alternatives
• Percentage Waterfall Chart
• Radar Chart
• Self Expanding Chart
• Excel 2007 Solution 1
• Excel 2007 Solution 2a
• Excel 2007 Solution 2b
• Selecting Data from a Combo Box
• Spreadsheet Allowing the User to Highlight Alternative Scenarios
• Table and Chart Selection Including a Combobox
• Charts with Scroll Bars
• Basic Chart and Rates of Change Chart
• Ten year financial review of a company
• Double Vertical Axes
• Additional Charting Exercises
• Text to Columns
• Deriving Values from Published Charts
• Dashboards
• More Advanced Chart

3 Introduction to Pivot Tables

• Introduction
• Definition of a Pivot Table
• Why you need a Pivot Table
• Example PTs
• Copying a Pivot Table
• A Copy of a PT is a Clone of a PT
• Copying your PT
• Changing Sum of to Average of to Count of ...
• Moving a Field from Row to Column
• Drag and Move Within the PT
• Drag and move the chosen field within the Task Pane
• Filtering a Field
• Sorting a Pivot Table
• Formatting Fields
• Calculated Fields
• Drilling Down
• Calculated Item
• Other Calculated Item Features
• Adjusting the Formula
• More Complex Formulas
• Forecasting with a Calculated Item
• Values
• Show Values As
• Grouping PT Data
• Starting or Setting up a PT
• The Grouping Process
• When Grouping is a Problem
• Pivot Chart
• Formatting a Pivot Chart
• A Pivot Chart with a Data Table
• Formatting
• Page Fields
• Multiple Page Fields
• Reporting with Page Fields
• Pivot Table from an External Source
• Part Two: Data Analysis

4 Pivot Tables 2

• Expense account analysis
• Double entry bookkeeping
• Trial balance
• Final accounts/reports

5 Ratio and Other Company Analysis

• Ratio analysis of company information ranging from the simple to the complex
• Common size statements
• Growth ratios in ratio analysis
• Z Score analysis
• Using the ToolPak Add-In that comes with Excel
• Descriptive statistics
• Histograms
• Correlation analysis
• Ordinary least squares (regression) analysis
• There is a database of company data to accompany this chapter and the detail of the chapter will refer to that database throughout.

6 Statistical Analysis

• This chapter enhances the work started in chapter 5 above and includes
• t statistic
• Standard Error
• P Value
• F statistics
• Confidence intervals
• Multiple regression analysis
• The relevant range
• Chi square test
• Non parametric tests
• The Box and Whisker Plot
• More Useful functions for analysis
• INDIRECT
• INDEX
• OFFSET
• MATCH

Part Three: Decision Making

7 Behaviour of Costs

• Splitting costs into their fixed and variable elements
• MINVERSE
• MMULT
• Non linear costs
• The linear treatment of costs: true and fair?

8 Cost Volume Profit Analysis

• Building on the work of chapter 1 of this part of the book, we will now explore the practical application of the behaviour of costs under the heading of cost volume profit or break even analysis

9 Marginal Costing and Decision Making

• Continuing with the theme of the behaviour of costs and the application of it to management accounting situations, in this chapter we explore how a knowledge of marginal costs can be used in decision making.

10 Traditional and Activity based costing

• Traditional overhead analysis: absorption costing
• Allocation
• Apportionment
• Re apportionment
• Overhead absorption rates
• Absorption costing
• Activity Based Costing

11 Budgeting

• This chapter concentrates on the preparation of budgets and budgeting reports that include:
• Functional budgets
• Cash budgets
• Master budget
• Budget reports
• Balanced scorecard reporting
• Activity based budgeting

12 Capital Budgeting

• Payback
• Accounting Rate of Return
• Net Present Value
• Profitability Index
• Internal Rate of Return
• Divisibility of Projects

13 Excel Techniques for Analysis and Decision Making

• Goal Seek
• Scenario Manager
• SOLVER

I'm nervous about leaving it at 13 chapters and will probably expand that to accommodate the manpower planning spreadsheet models.

DW

British Airways

Following on from my recent BA case study, I see the airline is calling on shareholders and creditors to stump up a further £600 million ... I want to take a look at why they are doing this when they have £1 billion in cash on the balance sheet already and a further £2 billion available to pay for their new planes.

Of that £600 million, £300 million is to be taken in one form or another from the Pension Fund. Given that CEO Willie Walsh is talking about BA "fighting for its life" I think any tinkering with the Pension Fund is [virtually] criminal and is a sackable offence.

Duncan Williamson

That Ordinary Chap Again

Stuart Rose is under threat at last. At the Marks and Spencer Annual General Meeting today there is a motion that he step down from one of his roles of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

As you know, I don’t rate this man as a businessman and even less as someone who is riding roughshod over the rules of corporate governance and the whole of Marks and Spencer plc.

Let’s hope the tree huggers don’t prevail and Rose does the right thing at last. A pity he is having to be forced to do this though isn’t it?

Duncan Williamson