David Kiron

Organizations across the business spectrum are awakening to the transformative power of data and analytics. They are also coming to grips with the daunting difficulty of the task that lies before them. It's tough enough for many organizations to catalog and categorize the data at their disposal and devise the rules and processes for using it. It's even tougher to translate that data into tangible value. But it's not impossible, and many organizations,...

In this third article in a series of four, the researchers behind the 2023 MIT Sloan Management Review-BCG Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy Big Ideas research project explore how using AI to refine KPIs leads to smart KPIs that are forward-looking and encourage organizational alignment. They define three types of smart KPIs and provide practical advice to help leaders use AI-enriched KPIs to increase strategic alignment.

In a recent data and analytics survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review in partnership with SAS Institute Inc., the authors found a strong correlation between the value companies say they generate using analytics and the amount of data they use. Combining the responses to several survey questions, they identified five levels of analytics sophistication, with those at Level 5 being most sophisticated and innovative. These analytical innovators...

Leaders increasingly characterize the workforce as being broader than an organization's employees, encompassing all of the people and groups that contribute to achieving the company's business objectives. The shift is challenging leaders to redefine who and what constitutes their workforce and to develop new management practices and organizational structures.

Results from the fourth year of MIT Sloan Management Review's research collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group have found that managers who say sustainability has caused their organization to change its business model are also more likely to say that the organization's sustainability activities have added to profits. Respondents to the survey who not only changed their business model because of sustainability but also generated profits from...

This case study examines Caesars Entertainment's sustainability initiative. In the past few years Caesars, the world's most geographically diversified gaming company, has come a long way toward earning a reputation as an environmental leader in the hospitality industry. It has received more than 50 awards and certifications for sustainability leadership. In just five years, the company has reduced its carbon footprint by nearly 10% and reduced its...

Companies increasingly consider external contributors to be a part of their workforce. But these work arrangements can introduce complex management challenges, given external workers' relative autonomy and a lack of coordinated management of internal and external talent. The authors describe a framework they have developed, based on three years of research conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, to help leaders manage - or orchestrate...

Many executives are struggling to determine the extent to which they should integrate the management of employees and external contributors. The MIT SMR-Deloitte Future of the Workforce team looks at Cisco as a case example of one organization focused on a more strategic integration of its contingent workforce.