Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy is a director of business consultancy Ravensbourne Research Ltd ravensbourneresearch@tiscali.co.uk> and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. After working for the Department of Trade & Industry, he took a post as a researcher at the London Business School. Chris was subsequently head of research with a firm of conference producers before taking up his present post in 1989. Since then he has been involved in a wide range of research, advisory and investment activities and is one of the editorial team on Jordan Publishing"s flagship encyclopaedia "International Corporate Procedures". His own book, "Competitive Intelligence: Gathering, Analysing and Using It", was published by Gower in 2005.

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Articles by Chris Murphy:


Statistics: Can You Really Believe the Figures?
Friday, 1st February 2008


Statistics: Can You Really Believe the Figures? [ABSTRACT]
Friday, 1st February 2008

Hard, objective, accurate, definitive, precise numbers are beguilingly appealing. Yet in reality numbers are often subjective, vague, provisional and need to be qualified - they can even be downright misleading. So a few key danger zones are highlighted here and some elementary precautions suggested. They may seem 'self-evident'. However, a vast number of examples could be quoted to show that simple errors often trip up even sophisticated research.