Prepared Minds
Fast Company ($) - May 18, 2021
The untold story of how Florence Nightingale used data viz to save lives
Nightingale was a fierce advocate of public health—and she used sophisticated graphic design to make her case.
McKinsey & Company - May 14, 2021
Benchmarking in the dairy industry: Strengthening performance amid double volatility
The dairy industry faces shifting demand and price pressure. Continuous benchmarking processes can help identify emerging areas of excellence and the possibility of higher-impact improvements.
HBR.org ($) - May 14, 2021
How to Calculate Risk Based on Where Your Profits Come From
Risk heat maps are simply mappings of various business elements’ magnitude of risk. Many companies use them as their primary risk-assessment tool, but they don’t paint a complete picture. The action question is how to integrate a company’s key profit-generating customers, products, and operations — its profit landscape — into its risk management process.
George Veth
This is a great read on how Customer-Led Category Management (via analytics) is bringing insight into how retail companies serve their customers. It walks through various levels on maturity in this effort. I’m not sure that the term CLCM has any recognition, but it’s exciting to think about reaching the fourth stage and delivering true “personalization” of customer offerings.
Bain & Company - May 12, 2021
How Customer-Led Category Management Can Transform Retail
By resetting their commercial models to put customers first, retailers can boost growth and margins.
MIT Sloan Management Review ($) - May 10, 2021
Understanding Decision-Driven Analytics
Consider decision-driven analytics when making key decisions about your customers.
Medium ($) - May 12, 2021
7 Reasons Why Business Intelligence (BI) Is Crucial
A practical peek into why having a BI setup can positively impact any business
Medium ($) - May 11, 2021
Persuasive metrics and meaningful outcomes, part one
Look at where we are today, look at what we’ve overcome, look at what we’ve achieved and accomplished in that time, and look at who we did it with.
International Institute for Analytics - May 4, 2021
Charts And Graphs Are Like Jokes
Everyone is familiar with the age-old adage that if you must explain a joke after you tell it, then the joke will be a flop. The same principle is true when you put data in front of a live audience, whether with a table, a graph, or a chart. This blog will clarify what seems at-first an unlikely comedic connection.
George Veth
Another article focused on the merits and challenges of AI. This one suggests that to reap a win that will propel you forward in your data science journey, you need to focus on what they call a “critical slice of the business” or a “domain”. A domain is an area large enough to make a dent in the business. They suggest that you invest heavily in a domain to get the type of results that turns heads. I like this focused approach – as I believe in the merits of AI if the opportunity, data, and focus are there!
Harvard Business Review ($) - May 1, 2021
Getting AI to Scale
Don’t try to change everything at once, but do begin with something important.
George Veth
This article suggests that disruption stems from 11 sources of macro change. To stay agile, organizations should pay attention to the early signals of change in these areas. The author advises that a cross-functional team be assigned individually to each source and meet periodically (online or offline) to share what they are finding. In this way, the team can identifying trends as well as consider what decisions might be impacted in the organization.
Rotman -
11 Sources of Disruption
A quantitative futurist advises leaders to pay attention to 11 sources of disruption.
George Veth
I like the way that this article “fuses” together the ideas of both data science and strategy. As we become more and more versatile in leveraging our corporate data to replicate, or “twin”, our internal and external environments, it only makes sense to begin to simulate strategy and to test our strategic thinking with advanced digital tools.
McKinsey & Company - Apr 26, 2021
The strategy-analytics revolution
It’s time to bring advanced analytics into the strategy room—here’s why.
Wired ($) - Apr 26, 2021
This Researcher Says AI Is Neither Artificial nor Intelligent
Kate Crawford, who holds positions at USC and Microsoft, says in a new book that even experts working on the technology misunderstand AI.
McKinsey & Company - Apr 23, 2021
A smarter way to digitize maintenance and reliability
In heavy-equipment maintenance, digital and analytics tools are struggling to live up to their promise. Here’s how to help them pull their weight.
Wired ($) - Apr 23, 2021
Now for AI’s Latest Trick: Writing Computer Code
Programs such as GPT-3 can compose convincing text. Some people are using the tool to automate software development and hunt for bugs.
Medium ($) - Apr 22, 2021
Why We are Building an Information Company Powered by Editorial Algorithms
Applied XL raises $1.5M to develop high precision AI systems that distill insights from big data, giving professionals and investors access to reliable life sciences information.
BCG - Apr 27, 2021
The Moment of Truth in Every Digital Journey
Many companies that pursue a digital transformation get stuck. Digital initiatives that have broad potential never emerge from individual business units (BUs) or functional areas. Why? Because the companies haven’t developed the necessary capabilities to scale digital throughout the enterprise and make digital the normal way of doing business.
Medium ($) - Apr 28, 2021
How Netflix uses Data Analytics: A Case Study
The contribution of big data and analytics in the success of Netflix.
George Veth
This article is about the online shopping platform, Shopee, and the way that the organization is aligned to integrate data-driven insights into new product features and offerings. The firm currently has market-facing business owners, internal engineers (including data science teams), and product managers – with the product managers bridging the gap between the other two. Historically, the business owners and product managers have worked together to design the future products. However, the data science insights (coming out of the engineering department) are beginning to inform these decisions. The article hints at the need for an enhanced two-way dialog on the product roadmap, as well as the need for product managers to have data science fluency.
Forbes ($) - Apr 20, 2021
The Future Of Work Now: Product Managers At Shopee
Shopee’s growth and success have been driven by its mobile-centric strategy, enabled by its data, analytics and AI capabilities. Over 95% of Shopee orders occur through the mobile app, and the company hyper-localizes its content and e-commerce processes within each of the markets they operate in, and integrates social interaction with e-commerce for a social shopping experience.
Medium ($) - Apr 20, 2021
Data is the basis for most digital decision-making but how reliable is data?
Data is the basis for many operations, but it doesn’t mean data is always reliable. Things can get complicated when you don’t know which data source is reliable and which is not. But we must use data all the time. Sometimes it is possible to increase the accuracy, but the more meaningful solution is to build a software layer to correct data before using it.
Medium ($) - Apr 17, 2021
Operationalization: the art and science of making metrics
Essential psychology for all data professionals
All Time Favorites
McKinsey & Company - Jun 1, 2002
HBR.org - Feb 7, 2012
HBR.org - Nov 29, 2013
George Veth
Solid article touting the benefits of benchmarking (across internal operations as well as against the industry). To arrive at a set of gaps & opportunities for continuous improvement, the authors lay out a 5-step process that includes a structural analysis to account for differences in the targets of comparison as well as a normalization of the KPIs being analyzed. This type of benchmarking seems like table stakes and must become commonplace for those that want to compete in an age of ubiquitous data and unlimited processing power.