CASE SUMMARY

1. Data Analytics at Alexandra Health System: A New Journey in the Healthcare Industry
The case is set in June 2014, when Lau Wing Chew, Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) at Alexandra
Health System (AHS) in Singapore was highlighting the achievements of the data analytics initiative made
by the Health Analytics Unit (HAU) at AHS to his management team. Although the initiative was still in its
initial stage, multiple medical and administrative areas had been improved with the help of data
analytics. The journey to develop the data analytics initiative had commenced in 2011, when Lau
reviewed a set of data presented by the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department, and realised that
non-emergency cases at A&E were taking up too much of hospital resources. He also noted other
pressing resource-related issues, such as acute bed shortages and patients not showing up for their
appointments at specialist outpatient clinics, causing a sub-optimal utilisation of critical resources like
doctors and appointment rooms. Lau knew that given the right metrics, predictive analytics could
improve the situation. In the following three years, the HAU had leveraged the capabilities of data
analytics to roll out initiatives such as population health and ageing-in-place programmes, and
implementing solutions into patient medical billing and operating theatre dashboards. Although these
unremitting efforts were showing results, the challenges ahead were significant. The HAU team not only
needed to get buy-in at an operational level with different business units, but also needed to increase
health awareness in patients. How could AHS improve the data analytics initiative further, and plan its
resources optimally? Students will gain an understanding of the critical success factors and challenges
faced during the implementation of analytics projects, as well as learn how to operationalize such a
project within an organisation.

2. Dow Chemical Co.: Big Data in Manufacturing

In 2012, a pilot study undertaken by the data services team of the Dow Chemical Company in the
polymer division of the multinational company's Midland, Michigan, plant had revealed an uncanny
trend on the company's shop floor. Plant engineers were working for the data; the data was not working
for them. The data services director saw an opportunity to reverse the trend through the
deployment of big data capabilities and, more specifically, enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI),
a subset of big data. How should he gain user acceptance of the proposed EMI?

3. How Data Analytics is Transforming Agriculture

Two discussions about the interaction between data analytics and competitive analysis have been taking
place in the past decade: one focusing on micro-level firm capabilities and the other on macro-
level industry competitiveness. We seek to integrate the micro- and macro-level analyses via the lenses
of firms in agricultural input markets. Agriculture is undergoing a tremendous transformation in the
collection and use of data to inform smarter farming decisions. Precision agriculture has brought a
heightened degree of competition for input supply firms, forcing greater interactions among friends and
foes.
 4. PatientsLikeMe: Using Social Network Health Data to Improve Patient Care
PatientsLikeMe, an health online community formed to provide value for patients in exchange for
sharing their health data, had grown substantially since its founding in 2004. By 2016 it had over 130
employees. However, convincing investors of the viability of the business model proves more
challenging. Its three founders believe it has the potential to reshape the healthcare ecosystem, but its
"not just for profit" approach is complex to communicate. In their ambition to improve the
healthcare experience by capturing health outcomes and learning what works in the real world (beyond
clinical trials) - they must attend to critical issues such as patient privacy in addition to setting their
growth strategy.

5. RBC: Social Network Analysis banking

In October 2013, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Canada's largest bank, hired a new head of Enterprise
Fraud Strategy, a department tasked with protecting RBC's global customers from fraud. The department
head's immediate priority was to prevent fraudulent transactions by RBC's own customers-a
phenomenon called first-party fraud-by implementing a bourgeoning technology called social network
analysis (SNA). The technology used predictive analytics and big data to forecast the occurrence of first-
party fraud. The head of Enterprise Fraud Strategy had three primary questions: First, how should SNA
be used to bring down the ratio of fraud alerts to actual fraud at RBC? Second, how should the cost of
maintaining SNA protocols be reduced? Finally, how should the issues around systemic performance of
SNA be resolved?

6. Royal Bank of Canada: Using People Strategy and Analytics to Drive Employee Performance
This case discusses how the leaders of the Royal Bank of Canada infused the 80,000-employee company
with a new emphasis on People Analytics. This supported the bank's business strategies for its wide
range of business units. The bank's new People Analytics group, led at the top by the vice president of
human resources, collected and analyzed huge volumes of data about the bank's employees,
customers, and business unit performance to help the company achieve its strategic goals. Companies
across industries had long talked about using data analysis to help them improve employee
and organizational performance, but the advent of big data created a step change in the ability to make
that happen. With the abundance of data available, and many potential ways to use it, the Royal Bank of
Canada, referred to as RBC, was choosing projects that had the greatest potential ROI. The People
Strategy and People Analytics teams worked together to add clear business value to business units
to help them achieve performance objectives. The case details two of RBC's major People Analytics
projects. The first project used data to identify empirically the traits of great managers and subsequently
identify who might or might not be a great manager. This enabled RBC to help those managers who
could benefit from coaching or other types of interventions. The second project used both internal and
customer data to diagnose whether any specific branch, region, or product innovation was not doing as
well as it could be-and why not.
 7. Evie.ai: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Work
This case recounts the journey of Evie.ai, a Singapore-based tech startup. Specifically, the case examines
how founder Lee Jin Hian and his team developed and implemented Evie, an artificial intelligence (AI)
personal assistant. There are very few teaching cases on AI and its impact on work and employment.
Commercial applications of AI may promise substantial potential gains to individual and organizational
productivity, but we need to be aware of their limits as well. This case introduces students to AI and how
this technology can be informed by data analytics and applied to various tasks. It also offers lessons on
the realities of running a startup: students will gain a deeper understanding of tech entrepreneurship (or
"technopreneurship") from analysing the challenges and opportunities that confronted Evie.ai, and
in navigating the decisions the startup needed to make in the face of mounting competition and
rapid technological shifts.

8. Big Data: Dimensions, Evolution, Impacts, and Challenges

Big data represents a new technology paradigm for data that are generated at high velocity and high
volume, and with high variety. Big data is envisioned as a game changer capable of revolutionizing the
way businesses operate in many industries. This article introduces an integrated view of big data, traces
the evolution of big data over the past 20 years, and discusses data analytics essential for processing
various structured and unstructured data. This article illustrates the application of data analytics using
merchant review data. The impacts of big data on key business performances are then evaluated. Finally,
six technical and managerial challenges are discussed.

9. Fargo Health Group: Managing the Demand for Medical Examinations Using Predictive
Analytics This caselet can be utilized to enhance students' understanding and appreciation of data
analytics for forecasting incoming medical examination volume by healthcare organizations. It requires a
predictive analytic solution in the form of a time series model. The nature of the assignment necessitates
effective teamwork on data cleaning, preparation and modeling/analysis of time series, as well as
presentation of key findings. The caselet should be moderated as a small-scale consulting engagement,
with the instructor assuming the role of the "client," meeting with the engagement team for regular
status updates, and attending to questions the team may have. Ideally, the caselet should run anywhere
from one week to a month, depending on how meticulously the instructor will plan to implement the
assignment. The caselet comes with an accompanying dataset.

10. How to Use Big Data to Drive Your Supply Chain

Big data analytics has become an imperative for business leaders across every industry sector. Analytics
applications that can deliver a competitive advantage appear all along the supply chain decision
spectrum- from targeted location-based marketing to optimizing supply chain inventories to enabling
supplier risk assessment. While many companies have used it to extract new insights and create new
forms of value, other companies have yet to leverage big data to transform their supply chain
operations. This article examines how leading companies use big data analytics to drive their
supply chains and offers a framework for implementation based on lessons learned.
 11. The Climate Corporation
Climate Corporation is a San Francisco-based data analytics company focused on agricultural
applications. It was acquired by Monsanto in 2013. In 2015, Climate's decision support platform was
used on 75 million acres of farmland in the U.S.; however, most of those acres were "free" acres. To
build a viable business, Climate had to convince farmers to subscribe to and pay for premium
offerings. The case describes Climate's technology approach, product offerings, marketing plans, and
the competitive environment for "digital agriculture".