Competing with Data and AI Challenge

April 21, 2020

Read The Full Prompt

Many companies today use data analytics or AI to create and capture value. For this assignment, please choose a company that uses data analytics or AI in a creative way to drive value creation, value capture, or its operating model.

You may focus on use of data analytics or AI to create new products or services, or you may focus on the use of data analytics or AI within the process of some part of its current business. Describe the current challenges and opportunities the company faces in this deployment. Then recommend changes the company needs to make to address these challenges or take advantages of these opportunities. While you should devote most of the space to value creation, please consider the value capture strategy as well.

Assignment

Create an approximately 750-word post to make your contribution on digit.hbs.org by 6 p.m. on April 21. (To make it interesting, please stay away from well-known big data/AI companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.)

Please also respond to and comment on three other posts per assignment. Feel free to use graphics, data, videos, and links to other sites to corroborate your points.

Selected posts will be discussed in class.

Submitted (78)

AstraZeneca: AI in Drug Discovery & Development
Partha Ray
Last modified on April 20, 2020 at 5:40 pm
Currently, it takes a staggering 10-15 years and costs $2.6 billion to develop a new drug, and an astonishing proportion of this is lost in the 90% of candidates that fail. AstraZeneca is one of the world’s largest Pharmaceutical companies [...]
AI chatbot behind Alibaba’s $38 billion Single’s Day sales miracle
Amanda Dong
Posted on April 20, 2020 at 12:26 am
Increasing customer service demand drives Alibaba toward intelligent customer service On Nov. 11, 2019, Alibaba scored another blockbuster Singles’ Day shopping festival with RMB 268.4 billion ($38.4 billion) gross merchandise volume, 26% higher than last year’s RMB 213.5 billion. This [...]
Walmart – An omni-channel vision with data as its core
DA
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 2:53 am
Walmart is striving to be the leader of omni-channel strategy in retail. Data is at the center of this vision. Walmart is leveraging both internal data (e.g. in-store data, online data) as well as external data (e.g. social media, weather, [...]
The Next Rembrandt
Marius Westhoff
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 4:22 pm
Blurring the boundaries between art and technology.
Woebot – the bleeding intelligent self-help therapist and companion
Eve
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 6:03 pm
Woebot has the potential to help millions, potentially billions, of people globally. And is desperately needed. Yet is ahead of its time and bleeding money. What to do? Go young!
Zoba: an AI-driven demand forecasting and optimization SaaS for shared mobility companies
Leonardo Hugo Lujan
Last modified on April 19, 2020 at 7:41 pm
As shared mobility providers grow and need to validate multifaceted business models, Zoba brings a modular solution to increase the companies' ability to predict demand and optimize their fleets.
Spotify’s winning data strategy may be hampered by operational challenges
Tommy Tom
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 2:30 pm
Spotify is leveraging loads of data to enhance the music listening experience
182-year-old P&G enters Big Data with Start-Up Pampers and Smart Diapers
hbs51369394
Posted on April 20, 2020 at 11:41 pm
P&G creates Start-Up Pampers and takes to the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show with the Lumi care connected system. A bundle of smart diapers, baby monitors, and a consumer facing app aims to combine parental insight with real time activity tracking [...]
LinkedIn – AI helps companies and professionals find each other faster
Jona Babi
Posted on April 18, 2020 at 4:40 pm
LinkedIn uses AI and the large amount of data to help professionals find the right job and companies to hire the right people much faster than before and hopefully completely eliminate the hiring biases in the future.
Blue Yonder – Intelligence in Supply Chain Management
Nicholas Dimitruk
Posted on April 19, 2020 at 11:35 pm
Blue Yonder is a leader in end-to-end digital fulfillment, harnessing artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize supply chains across the globe. But could COVID-19 be the Black Swan event that breaks their value proposition to pieces?
Mesmer: Automating Mobile App Testing
HK
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 5:50 pm
Mesmer is an AI company looking to change the future of software testing. They say: "Bots do the grunt work, humans do the fun work."
Robo-Banking: Artificial Intelligence at JPMorgan Chase
SR2020
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 3:59 pm
JPMorgan Chase is leading the way in AI-enabled banking with a comprehensive strategy that spans across business lines and functions to create value for the company, its clients, and the industry as a whole.
John Deere: Planting the Seeds of Technology and Harvesting Profits
iBot
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 5:02 pm
John Deere is on the cutting edge of AI, ML, and computer vision applications in agriculture, and well-positioned to reap the benefits of the digital innovations sprouting in Silicon Valley.
TOMRA – Potatoes to the Right, Rocks to the Left
r cai
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 6:00 pm
TOMRA creates technology based solutions that enable advanced collection and sorting systems across the food, recycling, and mining industries.
Criteo: how much personalized retargeting is too much?
Paul-Emile Landrin
Posted on April 20, 2020 at 8:50 am
Criteo uses AI and Big Data to increase the scope of online advertising by created unique ads for ... each individual customer.
Replica: Informing Urban Planning with Synthetic Simulations
Cherish Weiler
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 4:58 pm
Replica aims to use machine learning and synthetic simulations to make urban planning more efficient and inclusive. Translating "real" data into "synthetic" data offers promise for addressing the privacy concerns critics have.
Game Within the Game: Data Analytics Changing the Way Football is Played
Robert Alexander
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 1:17 pm
Uncovering next-generation statistics to understand the in-game impact of professional football players across the NFL.
AiFi – Making Retail Store Autonomous using AI
HZ
Posted on April 17, 2020 at 3:41 pm
AiFi uses AI, machine learning, computer vision and sensor flow to bring a check-out free experience to any retail store concept.
Digit: Saving you from Not Saving
Carla SanchezArmas
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 7:00 pm
  Is micro saving a thing? Digit and its venture capital investors seem to think it is. Micro saving is better than no saving, particularly when you seem to live paycheck-to-paycheck. Having a digital assistant that can go through your [...]
Textio.com Reducing Gender Bias in Hiring with AI?
I'm Not A Robot
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 5:47 pm
Textio uses AI to recommend word-choices and write job postings for companies to improve the demographic diversity of its job applicants and speed and efficacy of hiring. Is it the future of hiring? How will it weather the storm of [...]
Clearview – Any Chance of Redemption?
dknab1892
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 11:34 am
Clearview grabbed the world’s attention early this year when details of their facial recognition software, Clearview AI were leaked to the public.  In an era defined by surveillance capitalism, data privacy and ethics issues are a consistent topic of conversation [...]
PlaySight – Using Data Analytics to Improve Tennis Performance
Russell
Last modified on April 21, 2020 at 5:59 pm
PlaySight allows tennis players to improve their games by installing smart cameras that provide advanced analytics. It impressively appeals to both amateur players and professionals like Novak Djokovic. So how does it do it?
Nuance: an AI solution physicians love
Joe Tung
Posted on April 21, 2020 at 1:57 am
Nuance has developed AI solutions that physicians love, captured a significant portion of the U.S. health care market, and is primed to be a major player going forward in the clinical recommendation and diagnostics space.
Ment.IO Data analytics for team-based decision making
Brian Westlake
Posted on April 20, 2020 at 7:44 pm
Collaborate remotely without feeling remote