Harvard Business Review – Page 2

Gaining a Competitive Advantage Through Predictive Analytics

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to predict the future? According to a recent Harvard Business Review webinar, companies, governments, law enforcement agencies, hospitals, and universities are using the power of big data, new technologies, and analytics to predict whether we’re going to “click, buy, lie, or die.”

So, what is the difference between forecasting and predictive analytics? Forecasting provides an estimate to anticipate trends for a large group over time, while predictive analytics goes much further and is focused on predicting the behavior of a single individual. For example, forecasting might provide an estimate of the total sales for a particular product line next quarter, while predictive analytics tells which customer will likely buy the product. Major industries such as Banking and Finance, Retail, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Oil and Gas Utilities, Government, E-commerce and Travel and Hospitality embrace predictive analytics to boost sales, improve operations, reduce risks, and gain a competitive advantage.

What is Predictive Analytics? Learn the about the process, applications, software and more here.

Click here to learn how to put predictive analytics to work from Eric Siegel, author of Predictive Analytics.

Read how to convert analytics into action here.

A New Way to Define “Good” Jobs in the USA?

Over the last century, the American culture has held steadfast to a standard on what constitutes a “good” job. A fascinating, new article by Harvard Business Review makes a compelling argument that is it time for America to pivot from that conventional standard.

Read the article here.

Disruption in the Consulting Industry

A couple of years ago, a team of thought leaders put their minds together to study professional services, especially consulting and law, to understand how these industries are changing and why. Then they spoke extensively with more than 50 leaders of incumbent and emerging firms, their clients, and academics and researchers who study them.

So what did these thought leaders learn from this study and the interviews?

The same forces that disrupted so many businesses, from steel to publishing, are starting to reshape the world of consulting.

Learn more here.

The Power of Constructive Nonconformity

Did you know that Croixstone’s consultancy model is built around the concept of leveraging the talents of “business mavericks“?

With that in mind, we have been enjoying Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino’s new Harvard Business Review series on the power of constructive nonconformity.

In the first article of the series, Professor Gino presents her case that “curiosity” is the most important trait for leaders to assess when identifying talent who can drive innovation in their organizations. She believes that curiosity – the impulse to seek out new ideas and experiences – is crucial to innovation because it moves people to look at the world from a different perspective and to ask questions rather than accept the status quo.

Learn more about the importance of curiosity, it’s link to innovation and strategies to assess this important trait here.

When McKinsey Met Uber: The Gig Economy Comes to Consulting

So is the gig economy disrupting the traditional consulting industry?

Yes, according to many experts. Back in 2013, Harvard Business Review published a fascinating article entitled “Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption” which predicted the disruption of established consultants as first smaller, then larger, clients start using alternatives to the big brands for all but “a core of critical work”.

In follow-up to this prediction, the Croixstone Consulting leadership team reviewed this week a newly-published article by Andrew Hill, Management Editor of the Financial Times, entitled “When McKinsey Met Uber: The Gig Economy Comes to Consulting” which spotlights the trend of business consultants setting out on their own as a higher-paid, and growing stratum of “gig consultants”.

We found the following factoids from the Financial Times article to be of particular interest:

31 percent of management consultants in the UK are self-employed.
20 percent of staff at the big consultancies leave every year.
59 percent of consultants made a deliberate choice to become independent (with top triggers including the desire for a career change, wanting more control over time and schedule, and wanting to work with clients in a different way).

Read the full article here (subscription may be required).