Competing with Data

March 23, 2021

Read The Full Prompt

Many organizations use large data and data analytics as an essential asset in their business. Think about how Waze collects and analyzes millions of queries every day to estimate traffic flows, or UPS uses hundreds of thousands of sensors to track millions of packages each day to feed users information about the progress of their shipments.

For this assignment, please choose a company that uses large data or data analytics to enhance its business. In other words, big data can be valuable in the context of offering a service or as a complement to another business process. What type of processes generate and renew that asset? What type of investments and process put that asset to use, and creates value for the company? How does the company capture value from large data and analytics? What challenges did the company have to overcome to make use of the assets? What challenges and opportunities do you anticipate for the company in the near term?

Devote most of the space to value creation, but feel free to make observations about aspects of the value capture strategy. (Once again, to make it interesting, please stay away from big data use by the big five – Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.)

Create an approximately 750 word post to make your contribution by March 23 at 6 p.m.

Please also respond to and comment on three other posts by March 24 at 8 a.m. Feel free to use graphics, data, videos and links to other sites to corroborate your points.

Selected posts will be discussed in class and also featured on the HBS Digital Initiative website.

Please prepare a 2-3 min summary of your blog post before class.

Submitted (33)

Civitas Learning: Using Data to Improve Student Success
MMD
Posted on March 22, 2021 at 10:32 am
Civitas Learning has an ambitious goal of increasing the annual number of college graduates by 1 million through its application of big data analytics in higher education.
Data Science in Investing
Jibran Ahmad
Posted on March 23, 2021 at 11:57 am
There is a relatively recent phenomenon of incorporating heavy use of data & analytics into the investment management process, specifically in private markets.
Boxed: Boxing Out The Competition with Data Analytics
John V.
Last modified on March 23, 2021 at 12:37 am
Since its launch 8 years ago, Boxed has sent out tens of millions of boxes of groceries, and has been valued at over $600M. Big Data played an integral part.
Duo: Your New Data Driven Language Teacher
Tiffany Banfield
Posted on March 23, 2021 at 3:52 pm
Duolingo uses data and analytics to drive personalized language learning…and it works
LUCA: Telefónica’s shady side hustle
Tomas Bresler
Last modified on March 24, 2021 at 3:16 am
While Tech Behemoths are under constant scrutiny for their data practices, there’s another industry which has been silently gathering gigabytes of customer behavior logs for years. Telecommunication companies, and in particular cellphone carriers, can easily monitor users’ activity 24/7 and [...]
Stitch Fix: The Data Powered Personal Style Assistant
Merrill
Posted on March 23, 2021 at 4:21 pm
Stitch Fix has invested heavily in building a best in class Data Science team to provide users with a sophisticated and reliable personal style assistant
Enterprise IT Asset Management Platforms: The Case for Data Analytics
Rexxar
Last modified on September 30, 2021 at 11:26 pm
The need for IT asset management (ITAM) platforms has grown exponentially with more and more devices deployed to the cloud or to the edge in the IoT era. Today, we survey a particular ITAM provider that is tackling this time-honored [...]
Data Analytics Making Auto Insurance Cheaper
Pranav Gupta
Posted on March 23, 2021 at 7:03 pm
How Aviva is using data analytics for auto insurance
Sportradar – Big Data “In a Box” for a Maturing Industry
Kyle Larkin
Posted on March 23, 2021 at 7:59 pm
Sportradar – Big Data "In a Box" for a Maturing Industry
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