Any research on strategies for business excellence aims to find the appropriate course of actions for executives.

Thus, discussions take place on how effective a performance measurement system can be estimated and/or be validated. It is argued that extreme value statistics provide the answer. It is demonstrated that the level and timing of investments allow to be forecasting small and medium size enterprises (SME) performance at financial crisis times.

The “investment level” is taken as the yearly total tangible asset (TTA). The financial/economic performance indicators defining “growth” are the sales or total assets variations; “profitability” is defined from returns on investments or returns on sales. Companies on the Italian Stock Exchange STAR Market serve as example.

It is found from the distributions’ extreme values that outlier companies (with positive performance) are those with the lowest but growing TTA. In contrast, the SME with low TTA, but which did not increase its TTA before the crisis, became a “negative outlier”. The outcome of these statistical findings suggests the best strategies to SME board members.

Marcel Ausloos is a Belgian engineer who teaches and researches statistical physics at the University of Liege. He holds a part-time chair at the School of Management, and School of Business, College of Social Sciences, at the University of Leicester. A member of numerous editorial boards of various journals, Marcel has also authored 600 publications, in peer review journals and as peer review published communications at scientific meetings, with more than 300 different co-authors, he has also edited 9 books.

The new season of “research today!” seminars opens on Thursday, 15 February 2018!

Season Four of our “research today!” seminars opens on 15 February 2018. If you haven’t been to one before, these are short presentations of emerging or new research in the Business School, followed by an informal discussion. They last an hour, they are happening every week from now until the end of term, and this season again has great talks with some exciting guests.