A finger on the Business Pulse
Raw data is the
critical foundation for business decision making, but digesting and
applying the wealth of available data is what counts. What does it
mean in big picture terms? What might it say about the future? How
does it relate to your own interests? If the numbers changed, what
difference would it make? And what do other people think?
All these questions and more are answered at BDO Business Pulse, an innovative free online service that has recently been launched by the firm.
It's a lot more than just a collection of general statistics. The emphasis is on giving the individual user access to areas of information that will be of particular relevance, and allows a unique interactivity whereby the user's own views on likely trends and developments can be added into the analysis alongside the expert input already online.
Content will change each quarter, with new content, toolkits and surveys. The current launch theme is Consumer Expenditure Growth.
BDO Business Pulse has three key sections. The first, Industry Watch, provides a top-down view of the health of industry sectors across Britain, using the latest trends to give a view of the present and projections of probable developments. Industry Watch is the only model that is able to predict business failures up until 2015. This economic overview and sector focus are derived from independent economists Cebr, and subjected to detailed quantitative analysis from BDO.
While detailed snapshots of each industry are given, Industry Watch concentrates on the trends – knowing the statistics is one thing, but are these part of a wider decline or recovery? What contingent factors are involved? How does this fit into the larger picture? Extensive material is available for download, while key information is highlighted online.
The next section, the consumer spending Interactive Toolkit, invites the user to set their own financial scenarios. Shifting macroeconomic variables have a direct impact on the fluctuations of consumer expenditure growth and therefore corporate profitability. engages The tool allows the user to measure how far their own predictions match up with those of BDO, and to see what consequences other scenarios would entail.
Specifically, projected changes in household expenditure growth and its effects on four sectors (retail & wholesale, transport, hospitality & leisure, and personal services) are mapped through house prices, bank base rate and CPI inflation; with the user having the facility to make quarterly alterations on each for the next year. Best case, worst case and realistic scenarios can all be simulated across the three, making for a very revealing (and, it has to be said, dangerously addictive!) model.
The Head of Claims and Recoveries at a major bank compares it to "the machine in the Science Museum when you get to mess around with blood pressure, heart rate, sugar levels etc. and see if the human survives".
Finally, a ten-question Flash Poll on the UK economic outlook and challenges for the coming year allows the user to benchmark their views in real time against other respondents giving a constantly updated taste of sentiment in the business community.
BDO Business Pulse has been receiving excellent feedback, and its community of users is growing fast. To visit the site, click here.
