Search results for ""author thomas h. davenport""

Go ahead, be skeptical about big data. The author was--at first. When the term "big data" first came on the scene, bestselling author Tom Davenport (Competing on Analytics, Analytics at Work) thought it was just another example of technology hype. But his research in the years that followed changed his mind. Now, in clear, conversational language, Davenport explains what big data means--and why everyone in business needs to know about it. Big Data at Work covers all the bases: what big data means from a technical, consumer, and management perspective; what its opportunities and costs are; where it can have real business impact; and which aspects of this hot topic have been oversold. This book will help you understand: * Why big data is important to you and your organization * What technology you need to manage it * How big data could change your job, your company, and your industry * How to hire, rent, or develop the kinds of people who make big data work * The key success factors in implementing any big data project * How big data is leading to a new approach to managing analytics With dozens of company examples, including UPS, GE, Amazon, United Healthcare, Citigroup, and many others, this book will help you seize all opportunities--from improving decisions, products, and services to strengthening customer relationships. It will show you how to put big data to work in your own organization so that you too can harness the power of this ever-evolving new resource.

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An invigorating, thought-provoking, and positive look at the rise of automation that explores how professionals across industries can find sustainable careers in the near future. Nearly half of all working Americans could risk losing their jobs because of technology. It's not only blue-collar jobs at stake. Millions of educated knowledge workers-writers, paralegals, assistants, medical technicians-are threatened by accelerating advances in artificial intelligence. The industrial revolution shifted workers from farms to factories. In the first era of automation, machines relieved humans of manually exhausting work. Today, Era Two of automation continues to wash across the entire services-based economy that has replaced jobs in agriculture and manufacturing. Era Three, and the rise of AI, is dawning. Smart computers are demonstrating they are capable of making better decisions than humans. Brilliant technologies can now decide, learn, predict, and even comprehend much faster and more accurately than the human brain, and their progress is accelerating. Where will this leave lawyers, nurses, teachers, and editors? In Only Humans Need Apply, Thomas Hayes Davenport and Julia Kirby reframe the conversation about automation, arguing that the future of increased productivity and business success isn't either human or machine. It's both. The key is augmentation, utilizing technology to help humans work better, smarter, and faster. Instead of viewing these machines as competitive interlopers, we can see them as partners and collaborators in creative problem solving as we move into the next era. The choice is ours.

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Why Everyone Needs Analytical Skills Welcome to the age of data. No matter your interests (sports, movies, politics), your industry (finance, marketing, technology, manufacturing), or the type of organization you work for (big company, nonprofit, small start-up)--your world is awash with data. As a successful manager today, you must be able to make sense of all this information. You need to be conversant with analytical terminology and methods and able to work with quantitative information. This book promises to become your "quantitative literacy" guide--helping you develop the analytical skills you need right now in order to summarize data, find the meaning in it, and extract its value. In Keeping Up with the Quants, authors, professors, and analytics experts Thomas Davenport and Jinho Kim offer practical tools to improve your understanding of data analytics and enhance your thinking and decision making. You'll gain crucial skills, including: * How to formulate a hypothesis * How to gather and analyze relevant data * How to interpret and communicate analytical results * How to develop habits of quantitative thinking * How to deal effectively with the "quants" in your organization Big data and the analytics based on it promise to change virtually every industry and business function over the next decade. If you don't have a business degree or if you aren't comfortable with statistics and quantitative methods, this book is for you. Keeping Up with the Quants will give you the skills you need to master this new challenge--and gain a significant competitive edge.

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A Wall Street Journal bestsellerA Publisher's Weekly bestsellerA fascinating look at the trailblazing companies using artificial intelligence to create new competitive advantage, from the author of the business classic, Competing on Analytics, and the head of Deloitte's US AI practice.Though most organizations are placing modest bets on artificial intelligence, there is a world-class group of companies that are going all-in on the technology and radically transforming their products, processes, strategies, customer relationships, and cultures.Though these organizations represent less than 1 percent of large companies, they are all high performers in their industries. They have better business models, make better decisions, have better relationships with their customers, offer better products and services, and command higher prices.Written by bestselling author Tom Davenport and Deloitte's Nitin Mittal, All-In on AI looks at artificial intelligence at its cutting edge from the viewpoint of established companies like Anthem, Ping An, Airbus, and Capital One.Filled with insights, strategies, and best practices, All-In on AI also provides leaders and their teams with the information they need to help their own companies take AI to the next level.If you're curious about the next phase in the implementation of artificial intelligence within companies, or if you're looking to adopt this powerful technology in a more robust way yourself, All-In on AI will give you a rare inside look at what the leading adopters are doing, while providing you with the tools to put AI at the core of everything you do.

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Today's most successful companies are Intelligent Companies that use the best available data to inform their decision making. This is called Evidence-Based Management and is one of the fastest growing business trends of our times. Intelligent Companies bring together tools such as Business Intelligence, Analytics, Key Performance Indicators, Balanced Scorecards, Management Reporting and Strategic Decision Making to generate real competitive advantages. As information and data volumes grow at explosive rates, the challenges of managing this information is turning into a losing battle for most companies and they end up drowning in data while thirsting for insights. This is made worse by the severe skills shortage in analytics, data presentation and communication. This latest book by best-selling management expert Bernard Marr will equip you with a set of powerful skills that are vital for successful managers now and in the future. Increase your market value by gaining essential skills that are in high demand but in short supply. Loaded with practical step-by-step guidance, simple tools and real life examples of how leading organizations such as Google, CocaCola, Capital One, Saatchi & Saatchi, Tesco, Yahoo, as well as Government Departments and Agencies have put the principles into practice. The five steps to more intelligent decision making are: Step 1: More intelligent strategies – by identifying strategic priorities and agreeing your real information needs Step 2: More intelligent data – by creating relevant and meaningful performance indicators and qualitative management information linked back to your strategic information needs Step 3: More intelligent insights – by using good evidence to test and prove ideas and by analysing the data to gain robust and reliable insights Step 4: More intelligent communication – by creating informative and engaging management information packs and dashboards that provide the essential information, packaged in an easy-to-read way Step 5: More intelligent decision making – by fostering an evidence-based culture of turning information into actionable knowledge and real decisions "Bernard Marr did it again! This outstanding and practical book will help your company become more intelligent and more successful. Marr takes the fields of business-intelligence, analytics and scorecarding to bring them together into a powerful and easy-to-follow 5-step framework. The Intelligent Company is THE must-read book of our times." Bruno Aziza, Co-author of best-selling book Drive Business Performance and Worldwide Strategy Lead, Microsoft Business Intelligence "Book after book Bernard Marr is redefining the fundamentals of good business management. The Intelligent Company is a must read in these changing times and a reference you will want on your desk every day!" Gabriel Bellenger, Accenture Strategy

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Explore why — now more than ever — the world is in a race to become data-driven, and how you can learn from examples of data-driven leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI In Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI, Fortune 1000 strategic advisor, noted author, and distinguished thought leader Randy Bean tells the story of the rise of Big Data and its business impact – its disruptive power, the cultural challenges to becoming data-driven, the importance of data ethics, and the future of data-driven AI. The book looks at the impact of Big Data during a period of explosive information growth, technology advancement, emergence of the Internet and social media, and challenges to accepted notions of data, science, and facts, and asks what it means to become "data-driven." Fail Fast, Learn Faster includes discussions of: The emergence of Big Data and why organizations must become data-driven to survive Why becoming data-driven forces companies to "think different" about their business The state of data in the corporate world today, and the principal challenges Why companies must develop a true "data culture" if they expect to change Examples of companies that are demonstrating data-driven leadership and what we can learn from them Why companies must learn to "fail fast and learn faster" to compete in the years ahead How the Chief Data Officer has been established as a new corporate profession Written for CEOs and Corporate Board Directors, data professional and practitioners at all organizational levels, university executive programs and students entering the data profession, and general readers seeking to understand the Information Age and why data, science, and facts matter in the world in which we live, Fail Fast, Learn Faster p;is essential reading that delivers an urgent message for the business leaders of today and of the future.

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You receive an e-mail. It contains an offer for a complete personal computer system. It seems like the retailer read your mind since you were exploring computers on their web site just a few hours prior…. As you drive to the store to buy the computer bundle, you get an offer for a discounted coffee from the coffee shop you are getting ready to drive past. It says that since you’re in the area, you can get 10% off if you stop by in the next 20 minutes…. As you drink your coffee, you receive an apology from the manufacturer of a product that you complained about yesterday on your Facebook page, as well as on the company’s web site…. Finally, once you get back home, you receive notice of a special armor upgrade available for purchase in your favorite online video game. It is just what is needed to get past some spots you’ve been struggling with…. Sound crazy? Are these things that can only happen in the distant future? No. All of these scenarios are possible today! Big data. Advanced analytics. Big data analytics. It seems you can’t escape such terms today. Everywhere you turn people are discussing, writing about, and promoting big data and advanced analytics. Well, you can now add this book to the discussion. What is real and what is hype? Such attention can lead one to the suspicion that perhaps the analysis of big data is something that is more hype than substance. While there has been a lot of hype over the past few years, the reality is that we are in a transformative era in terms of analytic capabilities and the leveraging of massive amounts of data. If you take the time to cut through the sometimes-over-zealous hype present in the media, you’ll find something very real and very powerful underneath it. With big data, the hype is driven by genuine excitement and anticipation of the business and consumer benefits that analyzing it will yield over time. Big data is the next wave of new data sources that will drive the next wave of analytic innovation in business, government, and academia. These innovations have the potential to radically change how organizations view their business. The analysis that big data enables will lead to decisions that are more informed and, in some cases, different from what they are today. It will yield insights that many can only dream about today. As you’ll see, there are many consistencies with the requirements to tame big data and what has always been needed to tame new data sources. However, the additional scale of big data necessitates utilizing the newest tools, technologies, methods, and processes. The old way of approaching analysis just won’t work. It is time to evolve the world of advanced analytics to the next level. That’s what this book is about. Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave isn’t just the title of this book, but rather an activity that will determine which businesses win and which lose in the next decade. By preparing and taking the initiative, organizations can ride the big data tidal wave to success rather than being pummeled underneath the crushing surf. What do you need to know and how do you prepare in order to start taming big data and generating exciting new analytics from it? Sit back, get comfortable, and prepare to find out!

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How to lead the change Analytics are driving big changes, not only in what marketing departments do but in how they are organized, staffed, led, and run. Leaders are grappling with issues that range from building an analytically driven marketing organization and determining the kinds of structure and talent that are needed to leading interactions with IT, finance, and sales and creating a unified view of the customer. The Analytical Marketer provides critical insight into the changing marketing organization--digital, agile, and analytical--and the tools for reinventing it. Written by the head of global marketing for SAS, The Analytical Marketer is based on the author's firsthand experience of transforming a marketing organization from "art" to "art and science." Challenged and inspired by their company's own analytics products, the SAS marketing team was forced to rethink itself in order to take advantage of the new capabilities that those tools offer the modern marketer. Key marketers and managers at SAS tell their stories alongside the author's candid lessons learned as she led the marketing organization's transformation. With additional examples from other leading companies, this book is a practical guide and set of best practices for creating a new marketing culture that thrives on and adds value through data and analytics.

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Your guide to making better decisions Despite the dizzying amount of data at our disposal today--and an increasing reliance on analytics to make the majority of our decisions--many of our most critical choices still come down to human judgment. This fact is fundamental to organizations whose leaders must often make crucial decisions: to do this they need the best available insights. In Judgment Calls, authors Tom Davenport and Brook Manville share twelve stories of organizations that have successfully tapped their data assets, diverse perspectives, and deep knowledge to build an organizational decision-making capability--a competence they say can make the difference between success and failure. This book introduces a model that taps the collective judgment of an organization so that the right decisions are made, and the entire organization profits. Through the stories in Judgment Calls, the authors--both of them seasoned management thinkers and advisers--make the case for the wisdom of organizations and suggest ways to use it to best advantage. Each chapter tells a unique story of one dilemma and its ultimate resolution, bringing into high relief one key to the power of collective judgment. Individually, these stories inspire and instruct; together, they form a model for building an organizational capacity for broadly based, knowledge-intensive decision making. You've read The Wisdom of Crowds and Competing on Analytics. Now read Judgment Calls. You, and your organization, will make better decisions.

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Mohan and Oliver have been very fortunate to have intimate views into the data challenges that face the largest organizations and institutions across every possible industry—and what they have been hearing about for some time is how the business needs to use data and analytics to their advantage. They continually hear the same issues, such as: We're spending valuable meeting time wondering why everyone's data doesn't match up. We can't leverage our economies of scale while remaining agile with data. We need self-serve apps that let the enterprise experiment with data and accelerate the development process. We need to get on a more predictive curve to ensure long-term success. To really address the data concerns of today's enterprise, they wanted to find a way to help enterprises achieve the success they seek. Not as a prescriptive process—but a methodology to become agile and leverage data and analytics to drive a competitive advantage. You know, it's amazing what can happen when two people with very different perspectives get together to solve a big problem. This evolutionary guide resulted from the a-ha moment between these two influencers at the top of their fields—one, an academic researcher and consultant, and the other, a longtime analytics practitioner and chief product officer at Teradata. Together, they created a powerful framework every type of business can use to connect analytic power, business practices, and human dynamics in ways that can transform what is currently possible.

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Companies that don't use AI will soon be obsolete.From making faster, better decisions to automating rote work to enabling robots to respond to emotions, AI and machine learning are already reshaping business and society. What should you and your company be doing today to ensure that you're poised for success and keeping up with your competitors in the age of AI?Artificial Intelligence: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review brings you today's most essential thinking on AI and explains how to launch the right initiatives at your company to capitalize on the opportunity of the machine intelligence revolution.Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future.

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A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place.We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up-to-date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Thomas H. Davenport to Michael E. Porter and company examples from Facebook to DHL, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips.This book will inspire you to: Make stronger connections and build greater trust among people who work on multiple teams Engage customers and employees alike with the help of artificial intelligence Channel your outrage about sexual harassment in the workplace into effective action Consider how CEO activism can generate goodwill for your company--and weigh its risks Pair data with qualitative research to increase diversity in your organization Remain competitive in a hub economy by using your company's assets and capabilities differently This collection of articles includes: "The Overcommitted Organization," by Mark Mortensen and Heidi K. Gardner; "Why Do We Undervalue Competent Management?" by Raffaella Sadun, Nicholas Bloom, and John Van Reenen; "'Numbers Take Us Only So Far,'" by Maxine Williams; "The New CEO Activists," by Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel; "Artificial Intelligence for the Real World," by Thomas H. Davenport and Rajeev Ronanki; "Why Every Organization Needs an Augmented Reality Strategy," by Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann; "Thriving in the Gig Economy," by Gianpiero Petriglieri, Susan Ashford, and Amy Wrzesniewski; "Managing Our Hub Economy," by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani; "The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture," by Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and J. Yo-Jud Cheng; "The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership," by Joseph L. Bower and Lynn S. Paine; and "Now What?" by Joan C. Williams and Suzanne Lebsock.

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The next generation of AI is here—use it to lead your business forward.If you read nothing else on artificial intelligence and machine learning, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you understand the future direction of AI, bring your AI initiatives to scale, and use AI to transform your organization.This book will inspire you to: Create a new AI strategy Learn to work with intelligent robots Get more from your marketing AI Be ready for ethical and regulatory challenges Understand how generative AI is game changing Stop tinkering with AI and go all in This collection of articles includes "Competing in the Age of AI," by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani; "How to Win with Machine Learning," by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb; "Developing a Digital Mindset," by Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi; "Learning to Work with Intelligent Machines," by Matt Beane; "Getting AI to Scale," by Tim Fountaine, Brian McCarthy, and Tamim Saleh; "Why You Aren't Getting More from Your Marketing AI," by Eva Ascarza, Michael Ross, and Bruce G. S. Hardie; "The Pitfalls of Pricing Algorithms," by Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg; "A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots," by Ben Armstrong and Julie Shah; "Why You Need an AI Ethics Committee," by Reid Blackman; "Robots Need Us More Than We Need Them," by H. James Wilson and Paul R. Daugherty; "Stop Tinkering with AI," by Thomas H. Davenport and Nitin Mittal; and "ChatGPT Is a Tipping Point for AI," by Ethan Mollick.HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever‐changing business environment.

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Most companies have massive amounts of data at their disposal, yet fail to utilize it in any meaningful way. But a powerful new business tool - analytics - is enabling many firms to aggressively leverage their data in key business decisions and processes, with impressive results. In their previous book, Competing on Analytics, Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris showed how pioneering firms were building their entire strategies around their analytical capabilities. Rather than "going with the gut" when pricing products, maintaining inventory, or hiring talent, managers in these firms use data, analysis, and systematic reasoning to make decisions that improve efficiency, risk-management, and profits. Now, in Analytics at Work, Davenport, Harris, and coauthor Robert Morison reveal how any manager can effectively deploy analytics in day-to-day operations--one business decision at a time. They show how many types of analytical tools, from statistical analysis to qualitative measures like systematic behavior coding, can improve decisions about everything from what new product offering might interest customers to whether marketing dollars are being most effectively deployed. Based on all-new research and illustrated with examples from companies including Humana, Best Buy, Progressive Insurance, and Hotels.com, this implementation-focused guide outlines the five-step DELTA model for deploying and succeeding with analytical initiatives. You'll learn how to: * Use data more effectively and glean valuable analytical insights * Manage and coordinate data, people, and technology at an enterprise level * Understand and support what analytical leaders do * Evaluate and choose realistic targets for analytical activity * Recruit, hire, and manage analysts Combining the science of quantitative analysis with the art of sound reasoning, Analytics at Work provides a road map and tools for unleashing the potential buried in your company's data.

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Intelligent machines are revolutionizing business.Machine learning and data analytics are powering a wave of groundbreaking technologies. Is your company ready?If you read nothing else on how intelligent machines are revolutionizing business, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you understand how these technologies work together, how to adopt them, and why your strategy can't ignore them.In this book you'll learn how: Data science, driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, is yielding unprecedented business insights Blockchain has the potential to restructure the economy Drones and driverless vehicles are becoming essential tools 3-D printing is making new business models possible Augmented reality is transforming retail and manufacturing Smart speakers are redefining the rules of marketing Humans and machines are working together to reach new levels of productivity This collection of articles includes "Artificial Intelligence for the Real World," by Thomas H. Davenport and Rajeev Ronanki; "Stitch Fix's CEO on Selling Personal Style to the Mass Market," by Katrina Lake; "Algorithms Need Managers, Too," by Michael Luca, Jon Kleinberg, and Sendhil Mullainathan; "Marketing in the Age of Alexa," by Niraj Dawar; "Why Every Organization Needs an Augmented Reality Strategy," by Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann; "Drones Go to Work," by Chris Anderson; "The Truth About Blockchain," by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani; "The 3-D Printing Playbook," by Richard A. D’Aveni; "Collaborative Intelligence: Humans and AI Are Joining Forces," by H. James Wilson and Paul R. Daugherty; "When Your Boss Wears Metal Pants," by Walter Frick; and "Managing Our Hub Economy," by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani.

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