Friday, July 10, 2020
Business Intelligence and Analytics 72
1 The Great Innovation Deceleration
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-great-innovation-deceleration/
The rise of the West is often traced back to the Black Death of the mid-1300s, which killed over 40% of Europe’s population. For example, some historians think that the resulting labor scarcity increased the bargaining power of peasants in the West, which led to the end of serfdom and to higher standards of living but failed to bring about institutional change in the East.
Many parallels between COVID-19 and the Black Death have been drawn, but most of them are unhelpful. In a medieval economy, fewer people meant more land per person and a higher income for the average citizen.
2 Taking supplier collaboration to the next level
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/taking-supplier-collaboration-to-the-next-level
Buyers and suppliers can work together to develop innovative new products, for example, boosting revenues and profits for both parties. They can take an integrated approach to supply-chain optimization, redesigning their processes together to reduce waste and redundant effort, or jointly purchasing raw materials. Or they can collaborate in forecasting, planning, and capacity management—thereby improving service levels, mitigating risks, and strengthening the combined supply chain.
3 Some Revelations in Consumer Behavior Since COVID-19
https://www.business2community.com/consumer-marketing/some-revelations-in-consumer-behavior-since-covid-19-02325856
A recent Morning Consult/Bloomberg News poll had some fascinating stats to share regarding the impact of Covid-19 on consumer behavior. There’s nothing here that’s surprised me, but the shift in purchasing habits is significant and worthy of a closer look.
Some business folks in general have been worried by these figures, which is why I wanted to take a moment to discuss it. In my view, the survey overall gives no reason to panic—but it does offer plenty of incentives to pay attention and adapt.
4 The Cost of Confidence
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-cost-of-confidence/
The COVID-19 pandemic has knocked consumer confidence hard, with profound and far-reaching implications. It has disrupted every aspect of daily life, including employment, consumption, and freedom of movement, creating uncertainty about what is safe and what lies ahead. Standard business has been upended, vaporizing certain norms consumers have always expected and assumed. This has created challenges and opportunities to which every organization — brand owners, especially — must now respond.
5 Reduce Contact Center Traffic by 19% and Increase Customer Satisfaction
https://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/reduce-contact-center-traffic-by-19-and-increase-customer-satisfaction-a-qa-02325875
What’s driving your contact center demand?
It’s a simple question, and no harm to remind ourselves. Most callers look to clarify something. Maybe they just received a notice around revised terms for an insurance policy. Questions typically relate to these three things: payments, charges or queries around a specific product or service. For all these categories, clarity of communications is key. And conversely, complex communications drive increased calls, and increased costs.
6 Pull and Analyze Financial Data Using a Simple Python Package
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/pull-analyze-financial-data-simple-python-package.html
Stock market analysis and good investing (for long-term growth) require careful examination of the financial data. Various metrics and ratios are often used in such analysis i.e. to assess the inherent quality of a stock. You may have heard about some of them in the talk from financial and investment experts.
For example, the Price-over-Earning ratio or PE ratio. It is the ratio of the share price over the annual earnings/share.
7 Demystifying modeling: How quantitative models can–and can’t–explain the world
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/demystifying-modeling-how-quantitative-models-can-and-cant-explain-the-world
One of the many impacts of the COVID-19 crisis has been to highlight the role of quantitative models in our lives. Ideas associated with modeling, such as flattening the curve of disease transmission, are now regularly discussed in the media and among families and friends. Across the globe, we are trying to understand the numbers and what they mean for us.
8 Motivating Your Workers With Opportunity Marketplaces
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/video/motivating-your-workers-with-opportunity-marketplaces/
The COVID-19 crisis has made organizations vastly more aware of the need for greater flexibility, adaptability, and communications in the distributed workplace.
Getting work done well and on time is job one, but what needs to come next? How do you quickly, cheaply, adaptively, and thoughtfully set yourself up for a future requiring unprecedented workplace and workforce agility? One promising idea revealed by recent MIT SMR research is opportunity marketplaces. These internal project marketplaces offer transparency and visibility around opportunities within organizations and use data and assorted analytic techniques to make matching recommendations between opportunities and people.
9 Crisis leadership: An agenda for troubled times
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leadership/from-a-room-called-fear-to-a-room-called-hope-a-leadership-agenda-for-troubled-times
Leadership matters most—and is hardest to do well—when people face objective threats, when old ways of working are no longer possible, and when confusion and anxiety abound. These are brutal and relentless facts of organizational life for tens of thousands of leaders who feel heightened responsibility for billions of people as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
10 The urban job escalator has stopped moving
http://news.mit.edu/2020/urban-job-escalator-stopped-0708
The great U.S. economic boom after World War II was an urban phenomenon. Tens of millions of Americans flocked to cities to work and forge a future in the nation’s middle class. And for a few decades, living in the big city paid off.
By 1980, four-year college graduates in the most urban quartile of job markets had incomes 40 percent greater, per household, than college graduates in the least urban quartile. And workers without four-year college degrees (“non-college” workers) in the same urban areas had hourly wages 35 percent higher than their rural counterparts.
11 How AI Motivates A Remote Workforce
https://insidebigdata.com/2020/07/06/how-ai-motivates-a-remote-workforce/
The COVID-19 virus has caused millions of white-collar knowledge workers to work from home, and while this could be seen as a boon to productivity, unfortunately it is not. These remote workers battle hundreds of daily distractions from helping children to making dinner along with the usual online breaks. Over time, these non-company activities add up and can yield at least 3-4 hours of unproductive work time.
12 Reviving High-Touch Business Models for the Social Distancing Era
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/reviving-high-touch-business-models-for-the-social-distancing-era/
The demand for many products and services has evaporated over the past several months as consumers have altered their typical patterns while adhering to stay-at-home orders and social distancing practices. But a unique set of businesses that may evoke feelings of nostalgia for some — including milk and frozen-food delivery services, and drive-in theaters — are attracting renewed interest. Such business models were quite prominent in the past but fell out of favor due to excessive costs, inconvenient distribution, or changes in consumer behavior. In the current era of social distancing, however, their high-touch, high-contact features are very desirable.
