Winning with Data

Winning with Data

by Tomasz Tunguz, Frank Bien
Released June 2016
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119257233

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Book description

Crest the data wave with a deep cultural shift 

Winning with Data  explores the cultural changes big data brings to business, and shows you how to adapt your organization to leverage data to maximum effect. Authors Tomasz Tunguz and Frank Bien draw on extensive background in big data, business intelligence, and business strategy to provide a blueprint for companies looking to move head-on into the data wave. Instrumentation is discussed in detail, but the core of the change is in the culture—this book provides sound guidance on building the type of organizational culture that creates and leverages data daily, in every aspect of the business. Real-world examples illustrate these important concepts at work: you'll learn how data helped Warby-Parker disrupt a $13 billion monopolized market, how ThredUp uses data to process more than 20 thousand items of clothing every day, how Venmo leverages data to build better products, how HubSpot empowers their salespeople to be more productive, and more. From decision making and strategy to shipping and sales, this book shows you how data makes better business.

Big data has taken on buzzword status, but there is little real guidance for companies seeking everyday business data solutions. This book takes a deeper look at big data in business, and shows you how to shift internal culture ahead of the curve.

  • Understand the changes a data culture brings to companies
  • Instrument your company for maximum benefit
  • Utilize data to optimize every aspect of your business
  • Improve decision making and transform business strategy

Big data is becoming the number-one topic in business, yet no one is asking the right questions. Leveraging the full power of data requires more than good IT—organization-wide buy-in is essential for long-term success. Winning with Data is the expert guide to making data work for your business, and your needs.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Introduction
  4. Chapter 1: Mad Men to Math Men: The Power of the Data-Driven Culture
    1. Operationalizing Data: Uber's Competitive Weapon
    2. The Era of Instant Data: You Better Get Yourself Together
    3. Data Supply Chains: Buckling Under the Load
    4. Management by Opinion: The Illusion of Knowledge
    5. Our Vantage Points
  5. Chapter 2: Four Problems with Data Today: Breadlines, Obscurity, Fragmentation, and Brawls
    1. Data Breadlines for the Data-Poor
    2. Data Obscurity: The Failure of the Card Catalog
    3. Rogue Databases and Analysts: The Data Fragmentation Problem
    4. Data Brawls: When Miscommunication Devolves into Arguments
  6. Chapter 3: Business Intelligence: How We Got Here
    1. Business Intelligence Is Born: The First Query
    2. Databases for the Masses: Oracle Commercializes Codd's Invention
    3. Legacy BI: A Three-Layer Cake
    4. Google's Answer to Huge Data: Vanilla Boxes
    5. 600 Petabytes per Day: HiPal at Facebook
    6. Extreme Data Collection: The New Normal
    7. Looker: Weaving the Data Fabric
  7. Chapter 4: Achieving Data Enlightenment: Gathering Data in the Morning and Changing Your Business's Operations in the Afternoon
    1. Not Just Another Person with an Opinion
    2. Aligning Sales Teams in Real Time
    3. Scaling Sales Teams with Data
    4. Determining Customer Satisfaction at Every Point in the Buyer Journey
    5. The Rosetta Stone: Developing a Shared Data Language
    6. The One Equation That Defines the Business
    7. Brutal Intellectual Honesty: Speaking Data to Power
    8. Putting Pride in Its Place: How Data Transforms Cultures
  8. Chapter 5: Five Steps to Creating a Data-Driven Company—From Recruiting to Regression, It All Starts with Curiosity: Changing the Culture
    1. It All Starts with Curiosity
    2. Why You Should Stop Listening to Your Boss
    3. How to Recruit Curious People
  9. Chapter 6: From Hacks to Harmony: The Typical Progression of Data-Driven Companies
    1. Step 1: Ask Your Friend, the Engineer
    2. Step 2: Bastardize an Existing Solution
    3. Step 3: Access Raw Data
    4. The Crux of the Problem
    5. Bring Your Own BI: The Five Letters That Will Change the Data World
    6. The Power of a Unified Data-Modeling Layer
    7. The Final Step: A Data Fabric
  10. Chapter 7: Data Literacy and Empowerment: The Core Responsibilities of the Data Team
    1. The Illusion of Validity: How to Avoid Data Biases
    2. Correlation versus Causation
    3. How Facebook and Zendesk Engender Data Literacy
    4. Walking the Data Gemba: Training by Walking Around
  11. Chapter 8: Deeper Analyses: Asking the Right Questions
    1. When Data Confounds Our Intuition: How to Handle Ambiguity
    2. Data Is Useless Unless You Can Act On It
    3. Defining New Opportunities by Creating New Metrics That Matter
    4. The Fastest Growing Media Site of All Time
    5. How to Run a Data-Backed Experiment: Step by Step
  12. Chapter 9: Changing the Way We Operate
    1. Change Begins with a Story
    2. Deliver Data with Panache: Structuring Presentations to Inspire
  13. Chapter 10: Putting It All Together
  14. Acknowledgments
  15. Appendix Revenue Metrics
    1. Business Revenue Metrics
    2. Engagement Metrics
    3. Distribution Metrics
  16. Index
  17. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Winning with Data
  • Author(s): Tomasz Tunguz, Frank Bien
  • Release date: June 2016
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119257233