Post by: Russell Walker, Ph.D.

Strategies for Monetizing Big Data

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Strategies for Monetizing Big Data

17 May , 2015  

Strategies for Monetizing Big Data The business world has become deeply focused on the use of Big Data to drive business insight and profits. As we have seen in the previous chapters, Big Data offers scale and precision in data. These features allow firms to exercise indirect measurement of assets. I use the term “asset” […]

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Digital Platforms and Big Data Creation

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Digital Platforms and Big Data Creation

11 Apr , 2015  

Digital platforms are all around us. We used many each day. These platforms serve our needs but also create realms of Big Data – about or lives, media, shopping, health, and interest. LinkedIn is a great example of a powerful and successful digital platform. Parties interface digitally. Data is openly shared, transmitted, created, and then […]

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Big Data and the Value of Automated Data Capture

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Big Data and the Value of Automated Data Capture

9 Apr , 2015  

 The development of analytics that can process data and lead to automation and the removal of workers is very much discussion today. We read about artificial intelligence concerns from technology leaders like Bill Gates and economic leaders like Larry Summers. In fact, the use of data and analytics has been removing jobs from various industries […]

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Big Data to Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Big Data to Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm

7 Mar , 2015  

Big Data and Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm By now, most of us have seen or are even using programmable thermostats. One of the recent and more interesting offerings in this space is from Nest. Nest sells a thermostat that captures data about human presence to self learn what heating and cooling decisions […]

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The Increasing Importance of Operational Risk in Enterprise Risk Management

Leadership, Risk Management

The Increasing Importance of Operational Risk in Enterprise Risk Management

28 Feb , 2015  

Enterprise Risk Management, as a corporate undertaking, has its deepest roots in financial services. Historically, for banks and insurance firms, the focus within enterprise risk has largely been credit and market risk. The Great Recession of 2008 showed us that liquidity risk and the interplay between a firm and capital markets were also important to […]

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Big Data Driving the Driverless Car: Digitizing Travel A major change to driving and travel is soon upon us. With little doubt, we can expect driverless cars in the next decade or so. However, it is not driverless cars that will change how we travel, but rather the digitization of travel, enabling driverless cars, which will change how we travel. In the earliest versions of automated cars, driverless automation was approached mechanically. An early version proposed vehicles locking into a monorail when on the interstate, for instance. Similarly, early versions of speed control were simply mechanical means for keeping the speed at a designated level, with no specific measuring of the surroundings. The development of sensors and rapid digital processing on cars changed the paradigm for control of the vehicle and its subsystems. Mechanics would be controlled by data, not uber mechanics. Instead of controlling mechanics by brute force, sensors and data allow or a more precise and agile adaption to how vehicles are operated. This paradigm shift and movement to data creation for the purposes of mechanical control has already overtaken the next generation of aircraft. A single flight on a Boeing 787 is estimated to create no less than half a TB of data from sensors. This data is, in many ways, data exhaust. The byproduct of proactive sensors and devices communicating their status and conditions around them. It is reflected in the Internet of Things (IoT) and how connected devices communicate their status even if action is not taking place. Just being connected will create data! Location, availability, and operating status are just some of the basic measures that can be captured on a continuous basis for any autonomous vehicles (even before trip begins). Once a trip is undertaken, data about the trip, deviations from the expected course, energy use, system performance, and specific environmental, traffic, and road interactions are captured. All of this is Big Data that is valuable to engineers, customers, regulators, and other businesses. The future of driverless vehicles includes a radical change in how we travel, owing to the digitization of travel. Soon, we will be able to open an app on our smartphones and summon a driverless car. It might come from Google, Uber, Apple, or a traditional automobile manufacturer. The collection of data begins even before the trip begins. In many ways, the wave of Big Data has digitized vehicle use already. Consider how Uber has digitized car services already. Owning a car is less critical if instead in can be summoned with high reliability and at a reasonable cost, as also in the case of Uber. Data about demand and supply of cars is currently used by Uber to price trips. Once driverless cars are available on demand, digitization of travel will create a new market for travel and the opportunity to seek out new efficiencies on when and how to travel. Data is created about the trip at a granular level allowing for new optimal decisions. In fact, the digital layer controls everything about the trip. By digitizing travel, travel by time of day, destination, route, and even purpose can be ascertained and used to make new optimal decisions. Might this suggest differential pricing? Sure it does. Want to go faster, you can pay for that. Taking the kids to school? Perhaps the local school district picks up part of the cost for the trip. Want to save on travel costs; your driverless car might suggest using the roads at non-peak hours or making long-distance trips at night. Taxing bodies might see the digitization of travel as a convenient means to tax trips based on distance, speed, energy use, or even just popularity and convenience of a road. You get a bill (on your app of course) that includes payments to all the invested parties: driverless car provider, tolls for roads, insurance, and energy use. The implications for how we travel and use vehicles are endless once we have digitized travel. The prerequisite digitized maps are now in place. Sensors allow Google’s driverless car to regularly travel on roads with traffic. Mobile technology is ready to interface with users. Digitizing travel will require Big Data and make new Big Data that will create new markets or travelers and travel providers. It will also change how we travel and pay for travel.

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Big Data Driving the Driverless Car: Digitizing Travel

28 Feb , 2015  

Big Data Driving the Driverless Car: Digitizing Travel A major change to driving and travel is soon upon us. With little doubt, we can expect driverless cars in the next decade or so. However, it is not driverless cars that will change how we travel, but rather the digitization of travel, enabling driverless cars, which […]

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Big Data is Transforming Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) Marketing

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Big Data is Transforming Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) Marketing

11 Feb , 2015  

Major consumer-package-goods firms (CPG), like Kraft, Nestle, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have always operated with a blind spot about customers. This has always made marketing challenging. Although their products were often ingested by consumers, they rarely if ever met customers. CPG firms rarely knew their identify of customers and even at times had a poor understanding […]

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Digital Strategy, Innovation

Sharing Data in the Sharing Economy

5 Dec , 2014  

The rapid and impressive rise of Uber and Airbnb in revolutionizing the car service and lodging industries is a testament to the rise of the “sharing economy.” In the sharing economy, assets that are traditionally owned and utilized by a single person for a single purpose, such as a personal car or personal apartment, are […]

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Digital Strategy, Risk Management

Managing Data Breaches and Cyber Risks

23 Nov , 2014  

Data Breaches Impact Reputations and Customers A data breach can lead to terrible consequences for you and your customers. In addition to devastating financial losses, the damage to your reputation and brand may be irreversible. Yet, despite the risks, some firms still view cyber crimes as random events. They take a “this will never happen […]

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Winning with Risk Management

Leadership, Risk Management

How to Win With Risk Management

22 Nov , 2014  

A Q&A with Russell Walker about risk management Many people think about risk management as a defensive strategy, a tool for minimizing exposure to economic crises or public-relations blowouts. But Russell Walker, a clinical associate professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, argues that businesses should be thinking about […]

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