Use machine learning to understand your customers, frame decisions, and drive value The business analytics world has changed, and Data Scientists are taking over. Business Data Science takes you through the steps of using machine learning to implement best-in-class business data science. Whether you are a business leader with a desire to go deep on data, or an engineer who wants to learn how to apply Machine Learning to business problems, you’ll find the information, insight, and tools you need to flourish in today’s data-driven economy. You’ll learn how to: Use the key building blocks of Machine Learning: sparse regularization, out-of-sample validation, and latent factor and topic modeling Understand how use ML tools in real world business problems, where causation matters more that correlation Solve data science programs by scripting in the R programming language Today’s business landscape is driven by data and constantly shifting. Companies live and die on their ability to make and implement the right decisions quickly and effectively. Business Data Science is about doing data science right. It’s about the exciting things being done around Big Data to run a flourishing business. It’s about the precepts, principals, and best practices that you need know for best-in-class business data science.

Summary Imagine predicting which customers are thinking about switching to a competitor or flagging potential process failures before they happen Think about the benefits of forecasting tedious business processes and back-office tasks Envision quickly gauging customer sentiment from social media content (even large volumes of it). Consider the competitive advantage of making decisions when you know the most likely future events Machine learning can deliver these and other advantages to your business, and it’s never been easier to get started! Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the technology Machine learning can deliver huge benefits for everyday business tasks. With some guidance, you can get those big wins yourself without complex math or highly paid consultants! If you can crunch numbers in Excel, you can use modern ML services to efficiently direct marketing dollars, identify and keep your best customers, and optimize back office processes. This book shows you how. About the book Machine Learning for Business teaches business-oriented machine learning techniques you can do yourself. Concentrating on practical topics like customer retention, forecasting, and back office processes, you’ll work through six projects that help you form an ML-for-business mindset. To guarantee your success, you’ll use the Amazon SageMaker ML service, which makes it a snap to turn your questions into results. What's inside Identifying tasks suited to machine learning Automating back office processes Using open source and cloud-based tools Relevant case studies About the reader For technically inclined business professionals or business application developers. About the author Doug Hudgeon and Richard Nichol specialize in maximizing the value of business data through AI and machine learning for companies of any size. Table of Contents: PART 1 MACHINE LEARNING FOR BUSINESS 1 ¦ How machine learning applies to your business PART 2 SIX SCENARIOS: MACHINE LEARNING FOR BUSINESS 2 ¦ Should you send a purchase order to a technical approver? 3 ¦ Should you call a customer because they are at risk of churning? 4 ¦ Should an incident be escalated to your support team? 5 ¦ Should you question an invoice sent by a supplier? 6 ¦ Forecasting your company’s monthly power usage 7 ¦ Improving your company’s monthly power usage forecast PART 3 MOVING MACHINE LEARNING INTO PRODUCTION 8 ¦ Serving predictions over the web 9 ¦ Case studies

Data Science for Business and Decision Making covers both statistics and operations research while most competing textbooks focus on one or the other. As a result, the book more clearly defines the principles of business analytics for those who want to apply quantitative methods in their work. Its emphasis reflects the importance of regression, optimization and simulation for practitioners of business analytics. Each chapter uses a didactic format that is followed by exercises and answers. Freely-accessible datasets enable students and professionals to work with Excel, Stata Statistical Software®, and IBM SPSS Statistics Software®. - Combines statistics and operations research modeling to teach the principles of business analytics - Written for students who want to apply statistics, optimization and multivariate modeling to gain competitive advantages in business - Shows how powerful software packages, such as SPSS and Stata, can create graphical and numerical outputs

Lead your organization to become evidence-driven Data. It’s the benchmark that informs corporate projections, decision-making, and analysis. But, why do many organizations that see themselves as data-driven fail to thrive? In Leading with AI and Analytics, two renowned experts from the Kellogg School of Management show business leaders how to transform their organization to become evidence-driven, which leads to real, measurable changes that can help propel their companies to the top of their industries. The availability of unprecedented technology-enabled tools has made AI (Artificial Intelligence) an essential component of business analytics. But what’s often lacking are the leadership skills to integrate these technologies to achieve maximum value. Here, the authors provide a comprehensive game plan for developing that all-important human factor to get at the heart of data science: the ability to apply analytical thinking to real-world problems. Each of these tools and techniques comes to powerful life through a wealth of powerful case studies and real-world success stories. Inside, you’ll find the essential tools to help you: Develop a strong data science intuition quotient Lead and scale AI and analytics throughout your organization Move from “best-guess” decision making to evidence-based decisions Craft strategies and tactics to create real impact Written for anyone in a leadership or management role—from C-level/unit team managers to rising talent—this powerful, hands-on guide meets today’s growing need for real-world tools to lead and succeed with data.

John Mingers' new volume, Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Ap plications of Autopoiesis, is a much-needed reference on autopoiesis, a subject penetrating many disciplines today. I can genuinely say that I enjoyed reading the book as it took me stage by stage through a clear and easy-to-grasp understanding of the concepts and ideas of auto poiesis and then, as the book's title suggests, on through their applica tions. I found the summary in Chapter 12 particularly useful, helping to crystalize the main points of each chapter. The book conveyed enthusi asm for the subject and stimulated my interest in it. At times the book is demanding, but only because of the breadth of the subject matter, the terms and concepts associated with its parts, and the challenge of keep ing hold of all this in the mind at once. This is an exceptional text. ROBERT L. FLOOD Hull, UK Preface In recent years Maturana's and Varela's concept of autopoiesis, origi nally a biological concept, has made a remarkable impact not just on a single area, but across widely differing disciplines such as sociology, policy science, psychotherapy, cognitive science, and law. Put very briefly, the term autopoiesis connotes the idea that certain types of sys tems exist in a particular manner-they are self-producing systems. In their operations they continuously produce their own constituents, their own components, which then participate in these same production pro cesses.

Companies that don't use AI to their advantage will soon be left behind. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will drive a massive reshaping of the economy and society. What should you and your company be doing right now to ensure that your business is poised for success? These articles by AI experts and consultants will help you understand today's essential thinking on what AI is capable of now, how to adopt it in your organization, and how the technology is likely to evolve in the near future. Artificial Intelligence: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you spearhead important conversations, get going on the right AI initiatives for your company, and capitalize on the opportunity of the machine intelligence revolution. Catch up on current topics and deepen your understanding of them with the Insights You Need series from Harvard Business Review. Featuring some of HBR's best and most recent thinking, Insights You Need titles are both a primer on today's most pressing issues and an extension of the conversation, with interesting research, interviews, case studies, and practical ideas to help you explore how a particular issue will impact your company and what it will mean for you and your business.

This paper discusses the impact of the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the financial sector. It highlights the benefits these technologies bring in terms of financial deepening and efficiency, while raising concerns about its potential in widening the digital divide between advanced and developing economies. The paper advances the discussion on the impact of this technology by distilling and categorizing the unique risks that it could pose to the integrity and stability of the financial system, policy challenges, and potential regulatory approaches. The evolving nature of this technology and its application in finance means that the full extent of its strengths and weaknesses is yet to be fully understood. Given the risk of unexpected pitfalls, countries will need to strengthen prudential oversight.

You have more information at hand about your business environment than ever before. But are you using it to “out-think” your rivals? If not, you may be missing out on a potent competitive tool. In Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris argue that the frontier for using data to make decisions has shifted dramatically. Certain high-performing enterprises are now building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights that in turn generate impressive business results. Their secret weapon? Analytics: sophisticated quantitative and statistical analysis and predictive modeling. Exemplars of analytics are using new tools to identify their most profitable customers and offer them the right price, to accelerate product innovation, to optimize supply chains, and to identify the true drivers of financial performance. A wealth of examples—from organizations as diverse as Amazon, Barclay’s, Capital One, Harrah’s, Procter & Gamble, Wachovia, and the Boston Red Sox—illuminate how to leverage the power of analytics.

This book offers a concise yet comprehensive introduction to supply chain resilience, covering management, modeling and technology perspectives. Designed to accompany the textbook “Global Supply Chain and Operations Management” it addresses the topics of supply chain risks and resilience in more depth, describing the major features of supply chain resilience and explaining methodologies to mitigate supply chain disruptions and recover. Numerous practical examples and short case studies are provided to illustrate theoretical concepts. Without relying heavily on mathematical derivations, the book explains major concepts and methods to build and improve supply chain resilience and tackle supply chain disruption risks in a simple, uniform format to make it easy to understand for students and professionals with both management and engineering backgrounds. Graduate/PhD students and supply chain professionals alike will benefit from the structured, didactically oriented and concise presentation of the concepts, principles and methods of supply chain resilience management, modeling, and technological implementation.

Evidence-Based Technical Analysis examines how you can apply the scientific method, and recently developed statistical tests, to determine the true effectiveness of technical trading signals. Throughout the book, expert David Aronson provides you with comprehensive coverage of this new methodology, which is specifically designed for evaluating the performance of rules/signals that are discovered by data mining.