Leading with AI and Analytics: Build Your Data Science IQ to Drive Business Value by Eric Anderson and Florian Zettelmeyer.
Eric is Professor of Marketing, former Chair of the Marketing Department and Director of the Kellogg-McCormick MBAi Program at Northwestern University. He holds a PhD in Management Science from MIT and has taught previously at the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester.
Florian is Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University and directs the Program on Data Analytics. He holds a PhD in Marketing from MIT and previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley, while also briefly working at McKinsey. He is a senior science leader at Amazon leading their Advertising Economics organization.
A very well written book with a targeted audience for organizational leadership. This wonderful introduction is addressing AI and business analytics for leaders who actually rely upon senior managers to execute analytics for their organization.
Perhaps no better example of establishing a comprehensive plan to deploy an Artificial Intelligence Analytics (AIA) Framework. In fact, the key for organizational leadership is to understand what is going on with your data. Ultimately this will provide insights to support any organization’s integration of AI services within their digital transformation.
Become evidence-driven
This may require leaders to become more involved if your organization’s data is not delivering quality. If the data is not good, not model will rescue your organization in today’s hyper competitive marketplace. This may indeed require considerations to implement measurable changes.
Only then can your data actually propel your organization forward. Rock solid data is the requirement. Then, regression and machine learning will help deliver an understanding of how to move AI’s prediction strengths to financial profit. So, is your data science team actually collecting the right types of data? Interesting to see a dissection of Moneyball, the movie about baseball statistics.
Executing on AI and Analytics
Eric and Florian provide advice addressing organizational change that leaders must understand in order for AIA to succeed. This includes people, data, and systems, and most importantly (and challenging) the culture of your organization. However they both acknowledge as they engage organizational leaders new to AIA the mandate to “create value with data, AI, and analytics” was the largest challenge. This is part of the organization’s failure to stand up a solid digital transformation plan. In addition, the embrace of AIA must be across the organization, not within isolated divisions or departments.
DSIQ
The rapid availability of AI is now an essential component of analytics. Eric and Florian illustrate a Data Science Intuition Quotient (DSIQ) throughout the book and actually close with AIA success stories including Allstate’s DSIQ which is now embedded across their organization. This success is further explored with Canadian Tire Accenture, and Vanguard. Each company regardless of marketplace has established an AIA ecosystem.
In conclusion, Leading with AI and Analytics is a deeply insightful book for organizational leaders. This can be viewed as a roadmap to success for organizations only when leaders fully understand AIA and will steer their ship in the right direction.