Friday, August 7, 2020
Business Intelligence and Analytics 76
1 How long will the economic recovery take?
https://www.rbcwealthmanagement.com/ca/en/research-insights/how-long-will-the-economic-recovery-take/detail/?utm_id=wm1552134912590220&=1
The U.S. economy’s Q2 COVID-19 crash was about as bad as economists had expected—but that doesn’t make it feel any better. GDP plunged 32.9 percent (q/q annualized) based on preliminary data, by far the worst decline since the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) began collecting comparable quarterly data in mid-1947. The previous low was -10 percent in early 1958.
This plunge, combined with the five percent retrenchment in Q1 of this year, wiped out three years of economic growth. The size of the economy is back to what it was in Q2 2017.
2 HR says talent is crucial for performance–and the pandemic proves it
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/hr-says-talent-is-crucial-for-performance-and-the-pandemic-proves-it
To say that chief HR officers (CHROs) are busy in the COVID-19 era would be an understatement. Now, more than ever, they are central to how companies are reimagining their personnel practices to build organizational resilience and drive value.
In the earliest days of the crisis, CHROs kept people safe while fostering connectivity and caring in an intensely stressful time. In planning for and implementing the restart, they have been working to maintain morale and productivity for remote workforces while trying to figure out how and when to get folks back into office settings.
3 How Managers Can Enable AI Talent in Organizations
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-managers-can-enable-ai-talent-in-organizations/
The AI & Machine Learning Imperative
“The AI & Machine Learning Imperative” offers new insights from leading academics and practitioners in data science and artificial intelligence. The Executive Guide, published as a series over three weeks, explores how managers and companies can overcome challenges and identify opportunities by assembling the right talent, stepping up their own leadership, and reshaping organizational strategy.
4 How search data can inform larger online business decisions
https://searchengineland.com/how-search-data-can-inform-larger-online-business-decisions-338621
As an SEO I’m constantly utilizing keyword search volume data to help make more informed decisions about clients’ online presence. But the reality is, this data has way more use cases than anyone gives it credit for. The role of a decision maker in any online business requires the ability to gather (or be presented with), understand, and forecast with all types of data. Simple yet effective methods for identifying trends in online searches can ensure you’re getting your product or services in front of the right people at the right time. This is particularly useful if you sell a variety of seasonal products online. But the same process can be leveraged for single-focus businesses, as well. This data can then trickle down to a variety of team members, from SEO and Paid Search Account Managers, to merchandisers and content strategists. How you ask? Let’s look at some use cases:
5 Data, Data and More Data
https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/the-weather-networks-long-term-forecast-data-data-and-more-data/
Before the COVID pandemic, the International Data Corporation projected data creation to grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025, 10 times the amount of data created in 2017. That number could soon well be higher, given the lockdowns that have forced businesses to rapidly pivot to online.
Few other companies understand the importance of data as much as Pelmorex Corp, which owns the Weather Network in Canada and El Tiempo in Spain. It’s the third largest weather platform in the world, attracting 60 million users to its business each month.
6 The Rising Frugal Economy
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-rising-frugal-economy/
In 2020, the world is grappling with COVID-19 along with several other major crises. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the world could experience the worst recession since the 1930s this year, with the global economy contracting by 3% as advanced economies shrink by 6.1%. The World Trade Organization expects global trade to fall by as much as 32% in 2020.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports that inequality in the world’s most developed economies is at its highest level in 50 years. The World Meteorological Organization recently warned that over the next five years, annual global temperatures could potentially rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, leading to catastrophic climate change.
7 Understanding channel capability for better digital marketing strategy
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/08/07/understanding-channel-capability-better-digital-marketing-strategy
Fundamental to creating any digital marketing strategy is a firm understanding of what it is that channels do and who they can reach.
This sounds straightforward, yet I regularly see companies that are reliant on channels that represent a race to the bottom (in terms of price/margin) or who are paying more than once to convert a customer. This is often a sign that they are mainly targeting low-value customers and/or even their own existing customers.
8 A Crash in the Dollar Is Coming
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-08/a-crash-in-the-dollar-is-coming
Is the decline of the dollar over? The U.S. currency has been falling steadily ever since the world exited the initial stage of the Covid-19 crisis. It has done so in line with the spectacular decline in real yields. This makes perfect sense. With lower yields, there is lower “carry” to be earned by parking in the dollar, so the currency would be expected to weaken.
But last week ended with a distinct variation of the theme. The 10-year real yield dropped below minus 1% for the first time since inflation-protected Treasury bonds have been on issue. Meanwhile the popular dollar index, which compares the currency to a group of leading counterparts, suddenly enjoyed its strongest rally in months, gaining almost 1% into the close:
9 How to Leverage Marketing Automation to Generate More Leads
https://www.business2community.com/marketing-automation/how-to-leverage-marketing-automation-to-generate-more-leads-02333081
The incorporation of the internet in human lives has changed the way people live and work. The mode of advertisement for the businesses is no exception to this!
As a result, people have devised marketing automation for alluring their target audience along with the inclusion of a few promising sub-processes that collectively contribute to instigating more leads.
To exemplify, the top results from the Pepper 2014 Marketing Automation Reportrevealed that 53% of the responders were using the marketing automation back in the year 2014, which certainly was expected to rise at a higher proportion in the future.
10 Essential Data Science Tips: How to Use One-Vs-Rest and One-Vs-One for Multi-Class Classification
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/08/one-vs-rest-one-multi-class-classification.html
Only a few classification models aid multi-class classification. Specific algorithms, including logistic regression and perceptron, work best with binary classification and do not support more than two classes of classification tasks. The best alternative for solving multi-class classification problems is splitting the multi-class datasets into multiple binary assemblies of data that can fit the binary classification model.
Algorithms used in binary classification problems cannot work with multi-class tasks. Therefore, heuristic methods, such as one-vs-one and one-vs-rest, are used to split multi-class problems into multiple binary datasets and train the binary classification model.
11 Business stress is no excuse to spam
https://martechtoday.com/business-stress-is-no-excuse-to-spam-243077
Whenever I think I’ve seen it all after 20+ years as an email professional, a brand does something to surprise me – and often not in a good way.
As we work our way through the COVID-19 experience, companies are striving for revenue any which way they can. Most are doing it by ramping up their existing channels. Some are blowing out everything they can in a desperate attempt to make their numbers.
But today I’m going to talk about what happens when a company goes too far.
