Category Archives: 99-Applying business intelligence

Conducting systematic research, making the best use of available resources, going beyond the simple and obvious sources, critically evaluating quality and reliability of evidence

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 99-Applying business intelligence

Five Easy Presentation Tricks

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I am sure  many of you have stumbled upon articles and lists of presentation tips. I have found the following list during my preparation for a recent client presentation. I always search for articles like this right before I present  in hopes that at least one thing will stick.

This Forbes articles mentions the following simple tips:

1. Ask for interaction– simply tell your audience that you want their participation and questions during your presentation (if it’s appropriate, of course).

2. Ask a great question early to get people talking– “if you suffer the silence for a couple of seconds- someone will answer you”.

3. Ask for your audience opinion– it can be a specific/random person if you’re presenting to a small group or just a general answer from the audience if the group is large. This will help you tailor the tone of your presentation.

4. Build in audience discussion and reporting– ask your audience to divide into small group and share their conclusion on a question. Mostly relevant to large-audience presentations.

5. Get moving– don’t be afraid to walk around and use hand gestures, it’s the easiest way to captivate your audience.

All of these tips involve some sort of interaction with your audience and I think that this is the biggest point. Make your audience believe like you care about the presentation and about their opinions and you will win their attention.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/01/28/five-easy-tricks-to-make-your-presentation-interactive/

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 99-Applying business intelligence, business databases, creativity methods

Bridging the Gaps for Future Mobile BI Users

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Most of us utilize Business Intelligence software mainly on our laptops, but the world has started to drift towards the mobile trends. Many workers travel and rely on tablets or phones for presentation aides yet there are still gaps between the corporate data and these mobile devices. Below are some examples;

Culture Gaps

  • Fast Data vs. BI Reporting
  • Friendly Users
  • Post PC Diversity

Technology Gaps

  • Cloud Platforms
  • Social Interaction
  • All Encompassing Ecosystem

The 2 articles in the embedded links below, focus on the current gaps that we see today between the mobile world and business intelligence in terms of culture and technology. Hopefully in the near future we can bridge the gaps and truly rely on the cloud and other internet services to tailor to our business needs.

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 99-Applying business intelligence, 99-Spreadsheet modeling, Uncategorized

Tiny Data: Not An Excuse

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When I got my first job as a Process Improvement Engineer for an industry leading company in their flagship facility, my first question to their production manager was: “Where’s the historical data on the process we need to improve?”. His answer was: “Well I know how many pounds of potatoes we usually put in, and I know about how many bags of potato chips come out the other end.”

How could such a sophisticated, industry leading company have so little knowledge about their own processes? Four years later, reflecting back on all the companies I have worked for and had exposure to, few have had the ‘big data’ that is such a popular topic of today’s data analysis discussions.

How do those us us who have only, ‘Tiny Data’ or incomplete data use it to make better decisions and improve out businesses? The first article posted below cites an Army Colonel’s experience:

“Look,” said the colonel, “if I’m on a battlefield trying to defend a hill and I get a piece of intelligence, even if I’m not 100 percent sure that it’s accurate, I will make decisions based on that intelligence.” He strongly believed that it’s better to have some information than none—and that you’d be a fool to disregard it just because it falls short of being definitive.

There are many ways to utilize small amounts of data, incomplete data, and varying quality data. You must find ways to fill in the gaps, determine the variance of the quality, and find ways to draw meaningful conclusions and areas to investigate more fully with small amounts of data.

Branch out and be creative, because a little bit of information is better than no information and is no excuse for simply accepting the status quo.

When Big Data Isn’t An Option

Small Data Analysis

How to Analyze Data With Low Quality or Small Samples 

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 99-Applying business intelligence, team dynamics, team roles

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

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I took a class in undergrad about “Servant Leadership” by Robert Greenleaf. I started questioning the difference between a manager and a leader, and have been intrigued by the concept ever since. As I was interviewing for my current position, I was questioned as to what type of leader I would be in the organization.

I pondered, and proceeded to explain the type of manager I would be and the skills that I would bring to the table. I described that I did not feel that someone could place me in the role of “leader”. It was a position that others saw me as based on how they felt about my abilities. They would make the decision to follow, I could not decide that for them.

I stumbled upon this article in the Wall Street Journal regarding this very topic. It discusses the importance of differentiating between a manager and a leader as the concept of the knowledge worker becomes more profound in our society.

“The leader originates, the leader challenges, the leader is an individual, the leader focuses on people.”

Take a look at the article and see how your natural characteristics fall into the spectrum. I believe that leadership is a way of life. It’s a characteristic that exudes from you, both in the professional world and your personal life. Leaders are the people that I select as mentors. The fact that I have placed them in that position in my life re-iterates how I feel about their ability to lead and challenge me.

My father is a mouthy, Italian businessman with salt and pepper hair. He has drowned me in the business world from a very young age. Along the way, I have gathered a few Tony-isms from him about this matter:

“You can promote people and make them managers, but you cannot make them leaders. That trait is who you are. When it comes out, people will know.”

“The person who knows how and why will always have a leg up on the person who only knows how or why.”

He’s a deep fellow.

Decide the type of position you want to hold in the lives of your co-workers, and work towards being looked at in that light. These abilities will alter the way you present, the way you communicate, and the way you analyze situations.

I leave you with one final Tony-ism: “Be cautious not to take too much advice.”

Christine

99-Applying business intelligence, Uncategorized

Becoming an effective user and connector of business information

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It was so interesting to see that the blog post “Stages of Skill Acquisition” from 7/1/14 referenced the Dreyfus Model for skill development.  In coming up with guidelines for MBAs in MP to determine their own personal development of business intelligence skills, we put together a five level framework based on the model developed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus.  This was shared with everyone as part of the Business Intelligence workshop training you received last winter.  The attached Business Intelligence Brief provides more details on this framework that you can use to track where you are in the attainment of specific business information gathering skills.

Business Intelligence BRIEFS-1

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 99-Applying business intelligence, business databases, creativity methods

The ‘Right’ Strategy For Business Intelligence?

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Companies often look for templates or real world examples when it is time to bring a business intelligence system online. While they try to mimic a company similar to theirs, each organization is faced with their own respective needs and challenges. One commonality does exist in most roll outs as the strategy standard; involving end users and thinking big but starting small. This article discusses the best implementation strategy that is shared among companies.

Involving the users allows there to be early buy in from many members of the organization and it promotes the benefits immediately.  With many ideas flowing about, the implementation team is well prepared to deliver the best system. Additionally, pilot programs to test this system in are critical. Mass roll outs without the proper testing can lead to various issues and each department usually has its own pace to adopt these technologies.

Timelines allow for organized planning but its really the end user acclimating to the new system and providing feedback which will determine how long this implementation can take.  Does anyone have any other advice that may complement this over arching advice?

99-Applying business intelligence, business databases, library research

Conducting Competitive Intelligence Market Research

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As part of my MP project this semester, I am focused on learning how to conduct competitive intelligence market research and tips and tricks on how my work team and I can to do this more effectively and efficiently. On About.com, I came across a 7-step, detailed breakdown of how to conduct Market Intelligence Research. See below.

  1. Determine Your Research Objectives
    • First you must determine your primary and end goal based on audiences who will be utilizing the information
  2. Evaluate Existing CI Data Collection Strategies
  3. Determine CI Data Collection Strategies
  4. Set Up Access and Integration Systems
  5. Establish Analysis and Reporting Processes
  6. Plan Dissemination
Planning
    • Planning for getting your information to the correct audiences – for example, how often will you report?
  7. Write the Story
    • Most market research is best presented to audiences in the form of a story and to do so, your CI audiences should understand how the data was collected and be made confident of that data through corroboration processes.

These were some good tips that I have already started and will continue implementing with my team at work as we continue conducting market research.

http://marketresearch.about.com/od/market.research.techniques/ht/How-To-Conduct-Competitive-Intelligence.htm

99-Applying business intelligence

Human Brain Inspires New Cognitive Analytics

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I wanted to share this great article, which links the human brain with business intelligence, thereby introducing a potential alternative to traditional analytics. This article gives a new futuristic view of how financial data and business decision might be approached in the future. The article was written by two Deloitte consultants and can be found here: http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2014/05/13/human-brain-inspires-new-cognitive-analytics/?KEYWORDS=business+intelligence+analytics

In their article they describe cognitive analytics as innovations, which are inspired by the way the human brain processes information, draws conclusions, and codifies instincts and experience into learning.

The authors state that the benefit of cognitive analytics is based on systems that draw from a broad variety of potentially significant information and relations to generate hypotheses rather than depending on predefined rules and structured queries to reveal answers. This differs clearly from traditional analysis, because the more data is put into a machine learning system, the system remembers and learns, which results in higher-quality insights and more exact hypotheses.

In the article the process of cognitive analytics is basically divided into three main components, machine learning, natural language processing and advancements in enabling infrastructure.

1) Machine learning. Machine learning represents artificial intelligence techniques and is modeled after characteristics of the human brain. Many of today’s implementations represent supervised learning, where the machine must be trained or taught by humans. The system will apply the users feedback on the quality of the conclusions to tune its “thought process” and refine future hypotheses.

2) Natural language processing. Natural language processing (NLP), or the ability to parse and understand unstructured data and conversational requests, is another important component of cognitive computing. NLP makes it possible to include large volumes of raw data—including handwritten content, emails, blog posts, and even voice transcriptions—from multiple sources in an analysis.

NLP can also make it easier for humans to interact with cognitive systems. NLP would make it possible to basically ask the program real questions e.g. “What are the sales projections for this quarter?” instead of being forced to look through a pile of excel data sheets and databases.

3) Enbabling infrastructure. This means basically to create low cost, high-end servers and large appliances to ensure continuously collection, storage, and analysis of the massive amounts of data.

One can say that cognitive analytics might revolutionize the way information is analyzed and applied, as more human activity is expressed digitally, resulting in evolving data forms. However, cognitive analytics is still in its early stages, and is for now not a replacement for more traditional information and analytics programs. Yet exploring this powerful new approach in the analytics arsenal might be a new valuable tool for businesses in fighting with massive amounts of unstructured data.

 

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 99-Applying business intelligence

Differentiating on Customer Service

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We all had some frustrating experiences with customer service representatives in our lives. Fortunately, I did not experience anything as severe as the one recorded example below by with a Comcast representative.

How much of the recorded conversation is the employee’s fault and how much is it the company’s? Obviously the representatives are not trained to react this way, but surely the “let’s-keep-a-customer-at-any-cost” strategy influences the representative’s behavior.

Why, in 2014, some companies are still able to differentiate themselves from the competition by providing great customer service? I would think that in our day and age, good customer service should be the standard, especially with the viral effect social media has on extreme customer experiences (good or bad). Why don’t Comcast’s management provide a better set of guidelines and solutions to their representatives? Why can’t you get the best deal (from any service provider) without dropping the “I’m leaving” bomb?

The switching costs are decreasing in the TV-provider industry. I now have an option to choose from four different providers, up from one (guess who) four years ago. Do you think Comcast is going to revamp their customer service strategy soon? Or can they keep it as long as they still have a monopoly in many markets?

Any part of the recording will do the trick, but to get the full effect please listen to the entire thing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/14/the-comcast-call-from-hell_n_5586476.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

99-Applying business intelligence

Healthcare & Business Intelligence

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I took a sociology class in undergrad that focused on the healthcare industry, specifically evaluating the efficiency and quality of delivering services. Most of what we focused on was from the patient perspective and how the system either did or didn’t support patient needs. This article focuses on applying business strategy and intelligence to the healthcare industry from the perspective of the supplier/organization.

With the mounting scrutiny on healthcare costs and quality, especially with the implementation of the ACA, it will become increasingly important for innovative leaders to bring business savvy to the industry. I think it’s the moral debate at the heart of healthcare and whether it’s a human right vs. a service rendered that makes the issue even more interesting. Leaders who effectively balance business acumen with responsible decision-making (keeping patient needs in mind) to turn hospitals profitable, or at least sustainable, are in short supply.

With the vacuum of innovative leadership, the industry is in drastic need of smart reform so it’s nice to see the skills we’ve already been practicing in class outlined in tangible ways within healthcare. I wonder, as places like Emory start to merge their business schools and schools of public health or medicine, if the right solutions will tend to arise more prominently out of public policy initiatives or business practices? Systems like the National Health Service in the UK arose out of necessity through public policy after WWII. Without a national crisis such as that, the transition of our system to predominately government-based organizations rather than private will be far more gradual. In that time, the application of the cited business intelligence will hopefully highlight the best parts of competition and business practices while embracing the benefits of greater access.

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/TEC-90944/Applying-Business-Intelligence-to-the-Needs-of-Healthcare-Organizations.html##