MIT Sloan Management Review

MIT Sloan School of Management recently held a two-day executive education course, Big Data: Making Complex Things Simpler, designed to provide organizations with both an overview of big data and a few techniques to harness some of the illusive power of data.

But in all the discussions that surfaced around the big issues from big data, the reality that many organizations grapple with is change management.

I am the proud recipient of an MIT Sloan Executive Education Course certification. Or, my avatar is.

MIT Sloan’s Big Data 4Dx executive education course, held simultaneously in Cambridge and in the virtual world this April, was the first ever to use a gaming interface. Think Second Life for the professional set.

Through the AvayaLive Engage platform, we online students were transported (as avatars) to a virtual auditorium, the classroom setting for the two-day Big Data: Making Complex Things Simpler course.

Few new technologies receive more intense interest than 3-D printing, with some predicting that it will revolutionize manufacturing. That promise remains emergent. But it is taking shape in some industries, such as shoes. The shoe company New Balance thinks that within five years it will custom-make shoes with 3-D printers. And there are already entrepreneurial fashion designers trying to leverage 3-D printing to build up their presence in the market.

Earlier this year, the financial services company HSBC came out with a report in which their analysts calculated that taking climate change seriously could cut share prices of major oil companies by up to 60%. That report, Peak Planet: The next upswing for the climate agenda, held some sobering news for business. Now that it has been made freely available on the company’s website, executives concerned with managing risks may want to read it.

Despite the considerable amount of attention paid to social media by business, the press, and academia, managers still don’t have a clear understanding of what social media actually is. Managers need to understand the nature of social media so that they can understand its strengths and weaknesses for their own business. If they don’t — in a market environment increasingly influenced by social media — they may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

New research shows which sustainability practices have a statistically significant impact on the overall success of the sustainable value-chain — suppliers, distributors, and partners — initiatives measured, their cost savings, and their revenue impact. The leading practices that showed particular effectiveness were clustered around three areas: engagement, goals and standards, and outside expertise. Managers should focus on the practices that are proven to work, and stop wasting their efforts on reinventing the wheel.

The emergence of social media in business, along with related digital initiatives, is causing more organizations to appoint a chief digital officer, or CDO in the C-suite. While the position was initially found in media, education, and retail, an increasing number of industries of all types are considering the position to consolidate and focus its social and other digital activities. Many feel that the CDO needs to report directly to the CIO, but that reporting relationship may not fit all cases.

The surprising finding that 55% of big data analytics projects are abandoned comes from a recent survey of 300 IT professionals. The most significant challenge with analytics projects, according to the survey? Finding talent. Most (80%) of the respondents said that the top two reasons analytics projects fail is that managers lack the right expertise in house to “connect the dots” around data to form appropriate insights, and projects lack of business context around data.

During our webinar, we described those characteristics that define each group, and what your organization can do to become more like Analytical Innovators — if you’re not there already (in a poll, 13% of audience members identified themselves as Analytical Innovators).

As the hour-long webinar came to a close, we found that there were far more questions than we had time to answer. And we also found that there were far too many intriguing questions to let them go unanswered.

Now that the crisis and chaos of the Boston Marathon bombings and the hunt for the suspects have passed, managers can consider the critical role that social media played in identifying and apprehending the bombers. Key management lessons can be gleaned from these awful events: (1) recognize what is possible for your organization and (2) effective collaboration is a learned skill that, with time and leadership, can improve productivity for a significant number of employees.

Most businesses depend on ecosystem services somewhere in their supply chain. Most don’t fully recognize the risk that environmental degradation poses to business. However, the Corporate Ecosystem Services Review 2.0 tool offers a 5-step process that helps managers develop strategies to deal with the risks — and opportunities — that develop from ecosystem changes.

CIOs support social business and want to increase their knowledge about social media in the enterprise, but they face barriers to expanding their role. One of the big challenges is the increase in the IT capabilities and resources of the CMO as more digital tools are used in marketing functions. The roles of the CIO and CMO may be blurring, so the future of the CIO as a leader in social business is uncertain.

Recent studies show that CMOs are highly involved and supportive of the use of social media for their function, and are enthusiastic about its potential role it may play throughout the entire business as well. This strong and growing relationship between CMOs and social media data may be leading to a growing influence and strength among CMOs in the C-suite and throughout the enterprise.

IBM chairman, president and CEO Virginia Rometty has been making the rounds of late — in February she spoke at the annual IBM investor briefing; in March to the Council on Foreign Relations — espousing a bold new future built upon big data.

At the investors’ meeting, Rometty said that big data — defined as data streaming in to the worlds’ organizations from cloud, mobile and social networks (and presumably mingled with enterprise data) — will be the basis of competitive advantage for every company and every industry for the next decade.

Designing for resilience can ensure that critical systems continue to operate despite increasing threats. The focus of any organization concerned with resilience should be on whatever assures the continuity of business operations and the systems in which they’re embedded. By defining a critical system — its components, boundaries, and functions — managers can begin to use “what-if” scenarios to determine which components, or combination of components, are most vulnerable.

As new markets emerge, large multinationals can find it hard to respond to them quickly. In the mid-2000s, specialty insurer Chubb felt it needed to move faster, both in its product development and in the way it responded to questions and issues field representatives had. Chubb integrated multiple social media tools into a social business platform that has improved response time. It also has held more than 50 online innovation gatherings, yielding several successful new businesses.

Research from the MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte showed that only 13.5% of CFOs support social business. There are logical reasons why this may be so, such as the need for this profession to scrutinize costs, look for ROI, and an uncertain benefit for the CFO function. However some in the profession are urging CFOs to be more open and see the financial payoff of a social business. Recent data shows that the reluctance among CFOs to support social business may be declining.

Just before the New Year, New York Times writer Steve Lohr wrote a blog, Big Data is Great. But So Is Intuition, which addresses a question we here at MIT Sloan Management Review have been researching for the past year: With the growing potential of data and analytics, where is the shifting line between analytics and intuition?

A study by the Conference Board and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University analyzed social media usage by senior executives and board members. Its findings offer insights as to why senior staff bring in a consultant or expert to educate staff. A total of 32% of those surveyed said they had done so and explained the reasons why. Many did so to learn about LinkedIn; others wanted to learn about using social media for promotion, developing rules, communication and more.

A study finds that CEOs actively engage in some social media but are much more passive with others. This blogpost is part of our current series on the use of social media by various executives in the C-suite.