Informed by relevant statistics, he is able to make sound business decisions. There is no such thing as a sure bet in business, but the right stats can take a lot of the guesswork out the decision-making process. If it has to do with market analysis, financial analysis, or auditing, there are going to be statistics that illuminate the issue.

Statistics play a role in virtually every aspect of business, at one time or another. Managers collect data about employee performance, for example, and can analyze it to find ways to improve productivity. Statistics also enable managers to compare different scenarios and make informed decisions about the best available options.

But the collection of data for use in statistics only works if you take a logical approach. You might use statistics to find out whether sales levels compare favorable from one quarter to the next, or whether they are meeting (or even close to) projected sales. Once the numbers have been crunched, you can make a determination about the best allocation of available resources.

Richard Lide relies on business statistics to help him make sound business decisions for his various enterprises.

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Experience has taught him that rumblings about the newest hot opportunities are almost always wrong. And therein lies the rub, for it is the elusive exception to that rule that fuels the excitement of the entrepreneur’s life.

The Next Big Thing, Richard Lide is convinced, is not going to be obvious; it is not going to resemble that Previous Big Thing. But maybe it will. Some prognosticators, for example, are forecasting that the Next Big Thing in computing will be The Fog, an enterprise computing platform that meets the demand for mobility, business intelligence, and real-time analytics – to say nothing of the vast tonnage of data generated by smart IoT clients and applications.

One of the things that he has learned to look for is patterns that enable him to predict where the Next Big Thing will emerge. But it’s a tricky business. All you have to do to understand that is take a look at old issues of popular magazines. Back in about 1960, the popular vision of the future – in the futuristic world of 2000 – indicated we’d be flying to work in jet packs, and have robots vacuuming the carpet.

Meanwhile, Richard Lide is searching for the Next Big Thing from his home in North Carolina.

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