Maximize profit and optimize decisions with advanced business analytics Profit-Driven Business Analytics provides actionable guidance on optimizing the use of data to add value and drive better business. Combining theoretical and technical insights into daily operations and long-term strategy, this book acts as a development manual for practitioners seeking to conceive, develop, and manage advanced analytical models. Detailed discussion delves into the wide range of analytical approaches and modeling techniques that can help maximize business payoff, and the author team draws upon their recent research to share deep insight about optimal strategy. Real-life case studies and examples illustrate these techniques at work, and provide clear guidance for implementation in your own organization. From step-by-step instruction on data handling, to analytical fine-tuning, to evaluating results, this guide provides invaluable guidance for practitioners seeking to reap the advantages of true business analytics. Despite widespread discussion surrounding the value of data in decision making, few businesses have adopted advanced analytic techniques in any meaningful way. This book shows you how to delve deeper into the data and discover what it can do for your business. Reinforce basic analytics to maximize profits Adopt the tools and techniques of successful integration Implement more advanced analytics with a value-centric approach Fine-tune analytical information to optimize business decisions Both data stored and streamed has been increasing at an exponential rate, and failing to use it to the fullest advantage equates to leaving money on the table. From bolstering current efforts to implementing a full-scale analytics initiative, the vast majority of businesses will see greater profit by applying advanced methods. Profit-Driven Business Analytics provides a practical guidebook and reference for adopting real business analytics techniques.

In this book, you'll discover the unseen strategies used by companies to take market share while driving profit rates that eclipse their competitors, their association peers, and their own history. These are companies that convert 15%, 20%, 25% or more of revenue into bottom-line profits, sometimes in notoriously difficult sectors or markets.More than a decade of research and discovery, often requiring the invention of new analytical tools and metrics to identify and quantify the dynamics driving record performance has been collected into this book. Along the way, it was necessary to develop new vernacular to better understand and describe what's really driving or preventing permanent profit gains, and to better manage the factors that get results.These are the secrets they don't teach at university, the metrics used to keep on track, and the sometimes surprising and game-changing epiphanies companies have used to restore profits, deliver superior customer experience, and permanently change the company's trajectory and market position.Armed with what's in this book and a willingness to change things for the better, you can take your company to the top and see the first results as soon as your next income statement.

A "how-to" guide to boosting sales through predictive and prescriptive analytics Data Driven is a uniquely practical guide to increasing sales success, using the power of data analytics. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the topic, this book shows you how to transform the corporate sales function by leveraging big data into better decision-making, more informed strategy, and increased effectiveness throughout the organization. Engaging and informative, this book tells the story of a newly hired sales chief under intense pressure to deliver higher performance from her team, and how data analytics becomes the ultimate driver behind the sales function turnaround. Each chapter features insightful commentary and practical notes on the points the story raises, and one entire chapter is devoted solely to laying out the Prescriptive Action Model step-by-step giving you the actionable guidance you need to put it into action in your own organization. Predictive and prescriptive analytics is poised to change corporate sales, and companies that fail to adapt to the new realities and adopt the new practices will be left behind. This book explains why the Prescriptive Action Model is the key corporate sales weapon of the 21st Century, and how you can implement this dynamic new resource to bring value to your business. Exploit one of the last remaining sources of competitive advantage Re-engineer the sales function to optimize success rates Implement a more effective analytics model to drive efficient change Boost operational effectiveness and decision making with big data There are fewer competitive edges to gain than ever before. The only thing that's left is to execute business with maximum efficiency and make the smartest business decisions possible. Predictive analytics is the essential method behind this new standard, and Data Driven is the practical guide to complete, efficient implementation.

In this pathbreaking book, world-renowned Harvard Business School service firm experts James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger reveal that leading companies stay on top by managing the service profit chain. Why are a select few service firms better at what they do -- year in and year out -- than their competitors? For most senior managers, the profusion of anecdotal "service excellence" books fails to address this key question. Based on five years of painstaking research, the authors show how managers at American Express, Southwest Airlines, Banc One, Waste Management, USAA, MBNA, Intuit, British Airways, Taco Bell, Fairfield Inns, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and the Merry Maids subsidiary of ServiceMaster employ a quantifiable set of relationships that directly links profit and growth to not only customer loyalty and satisfaction, but to employee loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity. The strongest relationships the authors discovered are those between (1) profit and customer loyalty; (2) employee loyalty and customer loyalty; and (3) employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Moreover, these relationships are mutually reinforcing; that is, satisfied customers contribute to employee satisfaction and vice versa. Here, finally, is the foundation for a powerful strategic service vision, a model on which any manager can build more focused operations and marketing capabilities. For example, the authors demonstrate how, in Banc One's operating divisions, a direct relationship between customer loyalty measured by the "depth" of a relationship, the number of banking services a customer utilizes, and profitability led the bank to encourage existing customers to further extend the bank services they use. Taco Bell has found that their stores in the top quadrant of customer satisfaction ratings outperform their other stores on all measures. At American Express Travel Services, offices that ticket quickly and accurately are more profitable than those which don't. With hundreds of examples like these, the authors show how to manage the customer-employee "satisfaction mirror" and the customer value equation to achieve a "customer's eye view" of goods and services. They describe how companies in any service industry can (1) measure service profit chain relationships across operating units; (2) communicate the resulting self-appraisal; (3) develop a "balanced scorecard" of performance; (4) develop a recognitions and rewards system tied to established measures; (5) communicate results company-wide; (6) develop an internal "best practice" information exchange; and (7) improve overall service profit chain performance. What difference can service profit chain management make? A lot. Between 1986 and 1995, the common stock prices of the companies studied by the authors increased 147%, nearly twice as fast as the price of the stocks of their closest competitors. The proven success and high-yielding results from these high-achieving companies will make The Service Profit Chain required reading for senior, division, and business unit managers in all service companies, as well as for students of service management.

Detect fraud earlier to mitigate loss and prevent cascading damage Fraud Analytics Using Descriptive, Predictive, and Social Network Techniques is an authoritative guidebook for setting up a comprehensive fraud detection analytics solution. Early detection is a key factor in mitigating fraud damage, but it involves more specialized techniques than detecting fraud at the more advanced stages. This invaluable guide details both the theory and technical aspects of these techniques, and provides expert insight into streamlining implementation. Coverage includes data gathering, preprocessing, model building, and post-implementation, with comprehensive guidance on various learning techniques and the data types utilized by each. These techniques are effective for fraud detection across industry boundaries, including applications in insurance fraud, credit card fraud, anti-money laundering, healthcare fraud, telecommunications fraud, click fraud, tax evasion, and more, giving you a highly practical framework for fraud prevention. It is estimated that a typical organization loses about 5% of its revenue to fraud every year. More effective fraud detection is possible, and this book describes the various analytical techniques your organization must implement to put a stop to the revenue leak. Examine fraud patterns in historical data Utilize labeled, unlabeled, and networked data Detect fraud before the damage cascades Reduce losses, increase recovery, and tighten security The longer fraud is allowed to go on, the more harm it causes. It expands exponentially, sending ripples of damage throughout the organization, and becomes more and more complex to track, stop, and reverse. Fraud prevention relies on early and effective fraud detection, enabled by the techniques discussed here. Fraud Analytics Using Descriptive, Predictive, and Social Network Techniques helps you stop fraud in its tracks, and eliminate the opportunities for future occurrence.

Beat the odds with a bold strategy from McKinsey & Company "Every once in a while, a genuinely fresh approach to business strategy appears" —legendary business professor Richard Rumelt, UCLA McKinsey & Company's newest, most definitive, and most irreverent book on strategy—which thousands of executives are already using—is a must-read for all C-suite executives looking to create winning corporate strategies. Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick is spearheading an empirical revolution in the field of strategy. Based on an extensive analysis of the key factors that drove the long-term performance of thousands of global companies, the book offers a ground-breaking formula that enables you to objectively assess your strategy's real odds of future success. "This book is fundamental. The principles laid out here, with compelling data, are a great way around the social pitfalls in strategy development." —Frans Van Houten, CEO, Royal Philips N.V. The authors have discovered that over a 10-year period, just 1 in 12 companies manage to jump from the middle tier of corporate performance—where 60% of companies reside, making very little economic profit—to the top quintile where 90% of global economic profit is made. This movement does not happen by magic—it depends on your company's current position, the trends it faces, and the big moves you make to give it the strongest chance of vaulting over the competition. This is not another strategy framework. Rather, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick shows, through empirical analysis and the experiences of dozens of companies that have successfully made multiple big moves, that to dramatically improve performance, you have to overcome incrementalism and corporate inertia. "A different kind of book—I couldn't put it down. Inspiring new insights on the facts of what it takes to move a company's performance, combined with practical advice on how to deal with real-life dynamics in management teams." —Jane Fraser, CEO, Citigroup Latin America

The definitive playbook by the pioneers of Growth Hacking, one of the hottest business methodologies in Silicon Valley and beyond. It seems hard to believe today, but there was a time when Airbnb was the best-kept secret of travel hackers and couch surfers, Pinterest was a niche web site frequented only by bakers and crafters, LinkedIn was an exclusive network for C-suite executives and top-level recruiters, Facebook was MySpace’s sorry step-brother, and Uber was a scrappy upstart that didn’t stand a chance against the Goliath that was New York City Yellow Cabs. So how did these companies grow from these humble beginnings into the powerhouses they are today? Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t explode to massive worldwide popularity simply by building a great product then crossing their fingers and hoping it would catch on. There was a studied, carefully implemented methodology behind these companies’ extraordinary rise. That methodology is called Growth Hacking, and it’s practitioners include not just today’s hottest start-ups, but also companies like IBM, Walmart, and Microsoft as well as the millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, managers and executives who make up the community of Growth Hackers. Think of the Growth Hacking methodology as doing for market-share growth what Lean Start-Up did for product development, and Scrum did for productivity. It involves cross-functional teams and rapid-tempo testing and iteration that focuses customers: attaining them, retaining them, engaging them, and motivating them to come back and buy more. An accessible and practical toolkit that teams and companies in all industries can use to increase their customer base and market share, this book walks readers through the process of creating and executing their own custom-made growth hacking strategy. It is a must read for any marketer, entrepreneur, innovator or manger looking to replace wasteful big bets and "spaghetti-on-the-wall" approaches with more consistent, replicable, cost-effective, and data-driven results.