Tom Davenport

According to Tom Davenport – distinguished professor of IT management at Babson College and co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics – the COVID-19 pandemic taught us that America’s data management system is lagging behind those of other countries. Here, he examines how decisions made during the pandemic became more important and more challenging, and that without a cohesive framework, the fractured, sometimes “alternative,” data often led to worse decisions than those made with no data at all. Bad sources and models resulted in cherry-picked facts, emotional decision making and cognitive biases. Now, with systematic methods for identifying these faulty impulses, Davenport teaches organizations how to avoid similar perils by course-correcting away from biased data to find reliable solutions. In this presentation, he discusses the role of statistics and heuristics and how much of our decision making should be offloaded to machines.

Tom Davenport revolutionized the world of analytics with his 2007 book Competing on Analytics. Now he’s describing companies that take the same aggressive approach to artificial intelligence. In this presentation, he discusses the attributes of AI-fueled companies, and details the leadership, strategy, and cultural traits that make companies highly successful with AI. From Kroger in Cincinnati to Ping An in China, he illustrates how AI-driven organizations will power the future of business.

In most industries, data, analytics, and artificial intelligence have taken the guesswork out of business strategy. So why haven’t these tools revolutionized health care? In this presentation, Tom Davenport – distinguished professor of IT management at Babson College and cofounder of the International Institute for Analytics – reviews the potential for more intelligent health care, and the structural barriers preventing a full health care makeover. He describes the silos that prevent data sharing, the slow progress of AI adoption, and the differences in objectives among stakeholders. With optimism about new AI capabilities and information management roles – like Chief Information Officer, Chief Data Officer, and Chief Analytics and AI Officer – and a keen understanding of internal change management issues, he offers health care leaders practical solutions for making more informed decisions through full data integration.

Although many companies and observers are excited about the possibility of competitive advantage from analytics on “big data,” they may not understand fully the differences between big and small data analytics. In this session, Tom describes the concept of big data and what organizations are attempting to accomplish with it, and the role of the data scientist in extracting value from big data. He presents examples of several leading companies, from startup to established, that are aggressively pursuing big data. Throughout the session, Tom sheds light on the implications of big data and how it enables organizations to manage and bring products and services to market.

Companies around the world have spent trillions of dollars on talent, software and devices to advance their analytics and AI capabilities, yet a substantial number still lack strong data-driven insights. In this talk, Tom Davenport – distinguished professor of IT management at Babson College and cofounder of the International Institute for Analytics – outlines the issues impeding analytics and AI adoption and cultural change. With statistics showing that only a small percentage of analytics and AI models ever reach production deployment, Davenport teaches leaders how to use data to reach more customers, optimize supply chains, improve HR, build enterprise-level intelligence, and significantly exceed business goals by structuring analytics and AI to achieve greater ROI.

Longtime Harvard, MIT, and Babson professor Tom Davenport – one of the world’s foremost authorities on analytics, big data and AI strategies that drive competitive advantage – has been an objective advocate for virtual offices since the 1990s when he wrote “Two Cheers for the Virtual Office.” COVID presents a once-in-a-lifetime (we hope) opportunity to redesign work to improve employee satisfaction, productivity, and the environment all at once. In this presentation, he outlines what today’s workers want from their work environments, the various factors that constrain work design, and the importance of segmentation and choice as design elements. He also reveals the outcomes of multiple experiments and data analyses that have been performed by leading firms’ HR analytics groups, and other research that could further guide post-COVID arrangements. “Employers today need workforce policies that are guided by data and enlightened experimentation,” says Davenport, “not opinion and tradition.”