CMO: Three action items for traditional business to improve efficiency, productivity and profits

More and more companies are using technology to communicate with other companies and their costumers.  As a graduate student at Northwestern University IMC, I have gather 2 articles that could make you get familiar with these technology items and help you understand how and why these technology items could help your company improving business productivity and efficiency.

The first article, entitled "Ten Technology Innovations to Change Your Work" by Rosie-Murray West from Telegraph talks about how to manage a successful business by implementing 10 technology items. When managing a business, it's complicated and hard to keep up with all the new technology that comes out. The article discusses cloud computing, 3D printing, Virtual workplace software (Slack and Zoom for video conference) and new payment methods. According to the article, these technology items are cost efficient and are very easy to use. They could be implemented into your daily workforce. By using these technology items, the efficiency and productivity will be improved.

Credit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/sme-challenges/technology-innovations-to-change-your-work/

The second article, entitled "How can Technology Improves Business Performance" by Kristin Logan from milner.com The author goes in detail and explain why technology could change the company's overall performances. The article discusses how technology improves business performance in Finances, operations, employees's productivity, customer service and talent retention. It gives lively example of why technology could save your cost and improve your company's efficiency. For example, print management service could eat 1-3% of your revenue. This way, your company's technology needs to be improved because technology allows the company to save cost, improve workforce productivity and gain profit.

Based on the research on these 2 articles and the coursework that I have done at Northwestern University, I have developed 3 action items that you should consider to improve your business productivity, efficiency and profits.

• Ride in Wave - Business should ride in the technology wave and implement useful technology items in their workforce.

• Be Open Minded - Business should be open to new technology and willing to accept new technological changes in workforce.

• Be profitable - Business should be empowered by technology and their profits should be increased.

The next time when you think about technology in your workplace, you could consider these action items.

Anbo Yao is a current graduate student in Northwestern University's IMC program and he will be graduating in December 2017.  Anbo specialized in digital & Interactive marketing, social listening, customer insights and business & consumer marketing analytics. Contact him on Twitter @AnboYao or on Linkedin at Anbo Yao.

Technology Enthusiasts: 3 Action Items to Bring a Spark to Your Company

Siri, Cortana, IBM Watson, Viv…Humans are building smarter machines to better serve the needs of…human beings. Artificial intelligence has become so hot a topic that every technology enthusiast should be curious about. As a grad student at the Northwestern Medill IMC program, I have found two articles that you, as a technology enthusiast, might find interesting.

An article by Will Knight from MIT Technology Review talks about deep learning and misunderstandings some people have on artificial intelligence. In an interview with the publication, Bengio, a professor of computer science at the University of Montreal, states that although deep learning helps make some progress in developing artificial intelligence, machines are still far from being intelligent or threatening human beings. Unsupervised learning and natural language understanding are two major unsolved problems with developing a revolutionary AI. AI is cool and could change the world, but people shouldn’t be over-excited or overwhelmed because it’s still at its baby stage.

A second article by Heather Kelly from CNN Money talks about Mark Zuckerberg’s perspective on artificial intelligence. Mr. Zuckerberg agrees that unsupervised learning is the key to advance artificial intelligence and plans to build his personal AI assistant this year. He believes that self-learning AI still has long way to go and people shouldn’t be afraid of it. Instead, it’s possible to make good use of it.

As a grad student at Northwestern, with a strong interest in technology and data analytics, I recommend the following three action items to anyone who shares similar passion:

• Think AI - Artificial intelligence is worth noticing, learning, and investing or contributing in other ways.

• Grow Together - Researchers and engineers have made some progress but still far from making real intelligent machines.

• Be Fearless - Artificial intelligence is not evil or dangerous, at least not at this moment.

Whether you are a student, an employee, an employer or an entrepreneur, as long as you are a technology enthusiast, these three tips will make you stand out from your peers and give you a head start when you develop a career in TECHNOLOGY.

Yuchen Luo @blazermania1

Personal website

Yuchen Luo is a full-time student in the Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program. After completing his undergrad at USC majoring in Business Administration and minoring in Sports Media, Yuchen worked for a Santa Monica ad agency where he analyzed consumer, competitive and campaign performance data to provide insightful media planning recommendations. This experience opens up his interest in the application of data analytics in marketing and advertising. Beyond data analytics, he is developing his new found interest in coding by taking online coding courses and training programs. He is super passionate about technology and his long-term career goal is to help a technology startup succeed with his all-around skill sets in data analytics, marketing, and strategy consulting.