Prepared Minds

About two years ago, a midsize U.S. law firm reached out to the Center for WorkLife Law to learn how bias was surfacing in their performance evaluations. The firm’s D&I director had spot-checked a sample of supervisor evaluations for bias and identified several red flags. They decided they wanted to go a step further and take a data-driven approach. (Music to our ears!)

Ten years ago, when I only waited ten minutes to get a cab, I was thrilled. Flash forward to today, if I order an Uber that’s ten minutes away, I’ll immediately cancel and request another. This is a textbook example of how consumer expectations constantly evolve due to advancements in technology.

New tools that help pinpoint complexity’s cost—and where it comes from—can help companies make better tradeoffs in managing product portfolios.

3 Steps To Turn Any Data Analysis Into a Memorable Story

Paradigmatic shifts in the business landscape, known as inflection points, can either create new, entrepreneurial opportunities (see Amazon and Netflix) or they can lead to devastating consequences (e.g., Blockbuster and Toys R Us). Only those leaders who can “see around corners” – that is, spot the disruptive inflection points developing before they hit – are poised to succeed in this market.

Raja Rajamannar is one of the world’s top marketers, and he’s in a better position to spot trends and anticipate change than just about anyone else. Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for Mastercard, as well as president of the company’s healthcare business, Raja is also president of the World Federation of Advertisers. In this episode, Raja shares why there is a crisis of confidence among organizations when it comes to their marketing departments.

Most of the time, we focus on removing as much uncertainty as possible in the attempt to provide the single “best” answer to the question we’ve been asked. However, when uncertainty is unusually high, we can serve ourselves and our sponsors better if we embrace the uncertainty instead of trying to fully contain it.

Many organizations start a Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process with little implementation experience, and armed with a few books and articles on the subject.  When times get hard or the process stalls, S&OP leaders can utilize an S&OP maturity matrix and a SWOT analysis to determine the next step that is best for their situation.

Few organizations take full advantage of data generated outside their walls. A well-structured plan for using external data can provide a competitive edge.

Broadly speaking, we refer to location intelligence as the use of mapping and geospatial data, in combination with a company’s internal customer data, to improve the customer experience and underlying business processes. 

As organizations launch more and more digital initiatives, CEOs must monitor whether they are delivering business results. These metrics are ones to watch.

Why (and why not) be more end-to-end, how to, and Stitch Fix and Netflix’s experience.

Thank you for joining our inaugural Live Demo Day on January 26, 2021. The Foundry and Gotham demos included examples of how our commercial and government customers — including manufacturers, defense agencies, and others — use our software.

Smart Simplicity involves the consolidation of all GBS activities into a more modular, interoperable, and far more comprehensively coordinated form. It is designed to achieve excellence and transform customer and employee experience, as well as user experience in general.

In an era when the pace of technological disruption is rapidly transforming industries — think of streaming services challenging cable, ride-sharing apps versus taxicabs, or electric versus hybrid cars — both incumbents and new entrants must predict how consumers will respond to innovative offerings. A new mathematical model helps incumbent firms forecast consumer response to novel tech offerings.

In a new report, Forrester outlines the 12 steps chief data officers can take to build, scale, and sustain data-driven discovery, analysis, and decision-making in their organizations.

Transforming a company into a truly data-driven business involves fundamental organizational changes… Ally MacDonald, senior editor at MIT Sloan Management Review, spoke with [Jonathan] Tudor [of GE Aviation] about his work with self-service data and organizational transformation.