Chiefly, perhaps, owing to the increase in the average size of our industrial or other organizations and to the increased facilities for carrying out the work by punched-card and other office machinery, there has of recent years been an increase in the country generally in the use of a number of organizational or management techniques of an analytical or statistical character. The tendency is more marked in America than in Britain, but even here we find an increased use of such techniques as ‘Market Research’, ‘Sales Forecast’, ‘Cost Analysis’, etc.

The more this type of statistical analysis finds favour, the greater will be the demand for increased statistical data relating to the economy of the country or of its social structure. Mr John Ryan, Vice-Chairman of the Metal Box Company Ltd, made this the main subject of his Alfred Watson Memorial Lecture to the Institute of Actuaries on 24 March 1952.