What is your proposal success rate? If you are a partner in law, accounting, an engineering firm, or any practice that involves selling intellectual property, tracking your proposal success rate is critical. You can use a simple formula. The number of winning proposals divided by the total number of proposals submitted in a given period – weekly, monthly, or annually. The leading experts have more than 90% proposal success rate. Writing a proposal is an investment. It costs time, money, and imagination. You don’t want to send a proposal to every small opportunity that you here about. You don’t want…
Your on-line activity: The emperor has no clothes
A story is told of an Emperor who allowed himself to be dressed in the finest suite of new clothes, which he had been told “had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not fit for his position.” In his special suite, he held a procession through town, never admitting that he was too unfit and stupid to see what he was wearing. He was afraid that people would think that he was stupid. The story goes on that “all the townspeople wildly praised the magnificent clothes of the emperor, afraid to admit…
Using Data Analytics to detect Fraud
Mustapha B Mugisa, spoke at the Institute of Internal Auditors Uganda on the topic, using Data Analytics to detect Fraud. Read about the speaker introduction and topic highlights. Making sense of big data, is the best skill you will ever master. Using Data Analytics to Detect Fraud Fraud by its nature is hidden. Unlike theft, where a stolen item can easily be detected as it will be missing. Fraud involves manipulation of records and burying it deep in the data. As an auditor, you need special skills and tools to be able to detect fraud. And that is…
Personal finance part2: why paying fees for children isn’t an investment
The biggest cost any average person incurs is living expense. And if you haven’t carefully planned for your incomes, you might end up having all your expenses in the living expense. Living expense includes leisure, food, utilities, clothes etc. It is likely that all the money meant to be invested for your future, you are putting it into living expense. Living expense are not critical needs. When we say someone is needy, it means they can’t meet their minimum requirements. But if you are spending money into things that are more of life style and leisure, you are eating your…
Where to invest in 2017? The HBR response
The lead article on the cover of the Harvard Business Review, December 2016 issue reads “where to find hyper growth. Frontier Economies may be Risky but they offer big rewards.” The article written by Aldo Musacchio and Eric Werker, explains where to play and how to win in 2017 for global companies in search of double digit growth. As “emerging market giants such as Brazil, Russia and China are experiencing an economic slowdown, they are increasingly expensive as a base for operations and it’s harder to export to and import from these countries than it used to.” The solution is…
How to investigate anonymous tip-offs?
I was recently faced with a strange case to investigate. The complainant remained completely anonymous and posted letters to the CEO of our company, local police and Chief Minister of the state. The complaint was against one of the employees of our company regarding social misconduct. How should one investigate these kind of cases where in the complainant cannot be traced but the allegations made are alarming. Regards, Mehul (from ACFE.com forum). Response by Mustapha B. Mugisa Any investigator has had to content with such kind of challenges. Tips from anonymous people are a challenge. You invest company resources only…
