People analytics is the field of science that is transforming the process of human resources management, using business analytics. The team working on people analytics at Google, came up with a very interesting detail on how to improve the onboarding process of new hires, immediately after the talent recruitment is concluded. It stated that new hires must be met on day one by the executive team. This fill the new hires, with a certain level of confidence. The insights gathered by the people analytics bench at Google, seemed to state the very obvious facts, yet often ignored practices. Obvious insights help in battling the inherent resistance to new data that people tend to put up. There is also a resistance to change. Kodak and Blackberry are famous examples of companies crumbling after not taking this into account.

Source:https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-surprising-value-of-obvious-insights/

Uploaded Date:16 February 2019

It has long been accepted business wisdom, that nothing really works out, until someone has sold something. Sales will not occur without leads being generated. And while, modern technology does help in generating leads, marketers need to still use the age- old principles of cold- calling. Unfortunately, as business research has confirmed, a little less than half the respondents in the B2B segment, areafraid of making such cold calls. Two major reasons have been cited for this fear. One is the fear of being perceived as a salesman. The other is failure, and the fear of its corresponding high chances. To solve the first conundrum, first of all, sales people must take pride in their work. Sales is an honourable profession, so sounding like a salesman, must hold little taboo. The fear of failure will only leave the body, when one gets habituated to it. So, constant trial is a must in it. Role- plays can be an effective way of dealing with it.

Source:https://hbr.org/2019/02/getting-over-your-fear-of-cold-calling-customers

Uploaded Date:16 February 2019

Hyper-scalers are known to have spent about US$ 185 billion in the last few years on data centres alone. These are the kind of organizations that work on mass scale, and today are engaged in humongous quantities of data warehousing. The group consists of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google. The Microsoft Azure and the Amazon Web Services have seen their quarterly revenues rise by 90 and 40% respectively, showcasing their massive growth trajectory and dominance of scale. A lot of spending is also being done by them on capital investments. These data centres need to be deployed with much consideration across the geographies. The changing customer landscape needs to be understood along with the effect of the same on suppliers. Margin compression and inaccurate demand forecasting are inevitable challenges. To win across segments, hyper- scalers need to ensure that their investments in manufacturing and for business research and development has to be more balanced. Someone has to assume technological leadership. Beyond being merely a vendor, some of these data centres will need to get integrated as strategic partners.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/how-high-tech-suppliers-are-responding-to-the-hyperscaler-opportunity

Uploaded Date:13 February 2019

The US government recently came out with a report predicting near doomsdayarriving by the end of the century, thanks to climate change. It says, that the impacts of climate change will lead to a ten percent reduction in the GDP. To counter this threat, one of the technological innovations has been the Home Energy Report (HER) developed by utility provider Opower, now part of Oracle since its 2016 acquisition. One of the key features of the HER has been the 3- bar graph that allows for households to compare their energy usage with that of their neighbors. It was revealed after the business research conducted that while there has been reduction in energy usage overall, the percentage impacted varies wildly. The energy consumption decreases further not just when one is personally concerned about the environment, but when households get an understanding that their neighbors too are conscious of the same.

Source:https://hbr.org/2019/01/research-people-use-less-energy-when-they-think-their-neighbors-care-about-the-environment?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=hbr

Uploaded Date:13 February 2019

An increasing number of people are now graduating with university degrees. This is true both for the developed countries of North America and the OECD group, as well as for the developing ones like from Sub- Saharan Africa. In the latter’s case, university degrees are rarer, so having one, vastly increases one’s chances of getting noticed by recruiters. This is in contrast with Scandinavia, where already a large number of people possess such degrees. Conversely, with the rise in these degrees, it is also the minimum that companies are expecting their employees to posses before opening up the pool. This is hurting the companies’ own positions, as their talent recruitment systems are still being fixated on past norms, rather than leveraging the modern trends surrounding ubiquitous disruption. College degrees are in fact also associated with a certain social class, and end up in hurting social mobility or equality. Even a study by the Manpower Group confirmed that beyond mere the possession of degrees, it is the communication, collaboration, problem- solving and customer servicing, which are on top of the pie, for recruiters’ real requirements.

Source:https://hbr.org/2019/01/does-higher-education-still-prepare-people-for-jobs

Uploaded Date:06 February 2019

One of the most common impediments in the way of business innovations being successful, are handoffs. These are cases of ideas being passed on from one to another for the next part of the work to be completed. Passing the baton, leads to the bright idea being miscommunicated during the execution phase, and thus ending up merely as a mediocre product. A playbook needs to be created, which will act as the set of guidelines on how these new ideas ought to be executed. The entire process, and not merely the ideation has to be owned up by the team or person that flags it off. A lot of the gaps emerge because people do not really manage to visualize their work as part of the bigger picture. That is why the benefits of the end product need to be communicated across the chain to all the key stakeholders involved in the process.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Stop-Dropping-the-Baton-during-Business-Transitions?gko=9f381

Uploaded Date:02 February 2019

One of the industries, in the grip of immense innovation, is the pharmaceutical one. The industry is also seeing tremendous diversification. Some of the most successful movers during this stage will be characterized by their move towards strategic differentiation, rather than by in- house discoveries. Their business research and development models will need to be increasingly virtualized. The decision making needs to be rapid, incorporating a reallocation of the resources. Pharma companies are also able to track greater quantities of business intelligence thanks to the enormous data profusion from patient use. This is helping is better therapy design. The studies are now being run in a more agile manner. Even the industry regulators are taking a break, allowing quicker connect between the patients and medicines. Value and evidence are increasingly getting aligned.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/pharmaceuticals-and-medical-products/our-insights/r-and-d-in-the-age-of-agile

Uploaded Date:02 February 2019