50-vs-100

Which is better, half or all the business gone?

I was queuing up for sliced fish noodles today and the stall owner told me that there was no more slice fish. She only had fried fish noodles.

Unlike fresh slice fish, fried fish can keep longer. That’s why they could still sell fried fish noodles. I wonder how much longer their fried fish could last. So I asked her so that I would not make a wasted trip ordering fish noodles from her in the few days.

She told me that fried fish was available because the supplier was not from the Jurong Fish Port which was closed for 2 weeks because of Covid. Instead, they buy from another supplier.

And because of that, she could continue to operate her stall and earn half the revenue, which was better than having to close down for 2 weeks because of the Jurong Fishery Port covid cases.

Risk assessment is one topic that is covered in my data analytics course. Spread your risk. For the sliced fish stall, it was simply 2 types of product. But for corporations, there are usually many suppliers. Knowing how dependent you are on the suppliers/customers helps you create your diversification plan. Data analytics is not about reading data. It is about using data to support/make business decisions. That’s what Smart Executives do.