Digital Strategy

Success Lessons from Digital Leaders and Their Followers

15 Dec , 2018  

There is an open debate among economists and business leaders on why digitization leads to a near winner take-all business model. We see the dominance of one search tool in Google and Netflix over other movie providers. In decades past, it was common to have a movie theater in each community and local bakers everywhere. In other business models, especially those driven by personal relationships and locality, we have seen many scores of offerings simultaneously. In fact, achieving scale for the seller was very hard.

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Digital Strategy, Innovation

Instacart: How ’bout them Carrots?

1 Nov , 2018  

Instacart recently announced a round of funding that evaluates the firm at some $7 billion. That is amazing for a firm whose drivers are presumably not employees and that holds no real inventory but sells food. It may seem like a naïve question, but what does Instacart do exactly? I know it delivers food, but […]

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Digital Strategy, Innovation

Finally, A Disruptor to Uber…Maybe

11 Oct , 2018  

Google’s Waze has been making waves by using its data about cars on the road to assemble the largest carpooling platform ever. This has the potential to disrupt Uber. On Waze, you can schedule a ride with a driver going the same direction as you. You can see reviews of riders, drivers, and make a […]

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Analytics, Big Data, Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Dangers of Facebook Banking and the Convergence of the Internet

7 Aug , 2018  

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Facebook approached multiple, major US banks, including Chase, Wells Fargo, and US Bank with a proposition to include customer financial data on Facebook.

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Analytics, Big Data, Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy, Innovation

Improvements from Artificial Intelligence and (More) Robots in Our Lives

10 Dec , 2017  

Improvements from Artificial Intelligence and (More) Robots in Our Lives It is anticipated that some 22 million units of Amazon echo will be purchased this year. Building on the 11 million sold in 2016, north of 30 million units will soon be deployed. It is perhaps as rapid a technological deployment, as a percentage of […]

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Innovation, Leadership

Product Branding Challenges in Winner Take All Business: Products As Services

11 Sep , 2017  

Product Branding Challenges in Winner Take All Business: Products As Services At the turn of the past century, the dominant retailer was Sears Roebuck and Company of Chicago, Illinois. Their famous catalog advertised virtually everything an American family would need. Sears also owned many factories that made the products and branded products as Sears, including […]

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Analytics, Big Data, Big Data and Analytics, Career Advice, Digital Strategy, Innovation, Leadership

5 Career Tips & Outlooks for Analytics Professionals

14 May , 2017  

1.  Analytics has Moved from Manual to Machine-Driven – Don’t Become a Robot! Most people in the field of analytics can remember writing their own analytical code. Today, our Data Scientists in the MSiA program at Northwestern, can produce analytical models from regression, decision trees, support vector machines (and more) – all with more or […]

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Analytics, Big Data, Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

4 Steps to Digital Dominance + Warren Buffett on Google

9 May , 2017  

The recent 2017 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting offered some insights into how Warren Buffett thinks about stocks, especially those of large digital companies. I thought it important to explore these, given the rise of Digital Enterprises. When we think of Digital Enterprises, leaders like Google, Apple, Amazon, and even Microsoft come to mind. What do […]

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Analytics, Big Data, Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy, Innovation

Tony Soprano, The Supreme Court, and the “Big Picture” of Google Maps

22 Mar , 2017  

“Take out the GPS. I don’t want the FBI tracking us with it.” – Tony Soprano “That’s what I like about you, boss; you are always thinking of the big picture.” – Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri. That is a cleaned-up and paraphrased exchanged between Tony Soprano and Paulie, when the mob crew got new Cadillac Escalades […]

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Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy, Innovation

Digitization Lessons from Google’s Nest

6 Oct , 2016  

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 are best. Programming is not needed; it learns what is […]

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