Need the Facts

March 27, 2020 Leave a comment

When facts are numbers, we need the numbers.

Caveat: “I’m not a Doctor ..“. I am a Technical Sales Strategist .. I’ll detail this at one point or another. Read on, please.

prospects-funnelsOur agents manage customer engagements, performing outreach to identify sales opportunities for our clients and move these opportunities along to close. This is typically represented as a funnel .. just like the one in your kitchen. Unlike the one in your kitchen, which gives you a wide opening to move something into a smaller opening, the Sales Funnel demonstrates how a large number of potential customers make their way to a closed sale. As you can surmise, not everyone who expresses an initial interest will actually make a purchase:

Thanks to Upwork for the image.

 

This does not relate 1:1 to the Coronavirus, but here’s a short analogy:

  • Total population: count
  • Total infected: count / percentage
  • Resolve on their own: count / percentage
  • Total hospitalized: count / percentage
  • Resolved in hospital: count / percentage
  • Don’t resolve in the hospital

As you may surmise, that is oversimplified .. and you might also guess, there are temporal (time) and severity aspects to these steps, i.e.:

  • Duration for self-resolution
  • Length of hospital stay (impacts bed, supplies and services utilization)
  • The severity for a hospital stay (impacts regular beds, ICU beds, equipment, supplies and services)
  • Ventilator required (much-needed devices, noting there is a finite count)
  • Length of time on ventilators (impacts available ventilators for the next patient)
  • Age of the patient

.. and lots more .. Intermediate things like turning beds, turning rooms, turning ventilators, and so on.

Last, each country has its own set of cases, differing start dates, climates, etc.

While trying to calculate the funnel, I stumbled across Worldometers: Coronavirus which broke out the top-line numbers nicely for me .. from there the percentages are easy to calculate .. but the denominators are unknown:

  • How many tests?
  • How many positive / negative?
  • How many resolved?

Facts matter. The numbers matter.

Please stay at home and protect everyone while you do your research.

Filed under COVID-19, Social

About Michael Coates
I am a pragmatic evangelist. The products, services and solutions I write about fulfill real-world expectations and use cases. I stay up-to-date on real products I use and review, and share my thoughts here. I apply the same lens when designing an architecture, product or when writing papers. I am always looking for ways that technology can create or enhance a business opportunity .. not just technology for technology's sake. My CV says: Seasoned technology executive, leveraging years of experience with enterprise and integration architectural patterns, executed with healthy doses of business acumen and pragmatism. That's me. My web site says: Technology innovations provide a myriad of opportunities for businesses. That said, having the "latest and greatest" for its own sake isn't always a recipe for success. Business successes gained through exploiting innovation relies on analysis of how the new features will enhance your business followed by effective implementation. Goals vary far and wide: streamlining operations, improving customer experience, extending brand, and many more. In all cases, you must identify and collect the metrics you can apply to measure your success. Analysis must be holistic and balanced: business and operational needs must be considered when capitalizing on a new technology asset or opportunity.

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