Case Studies

The Bank of England, one of the world's oldest and most influential central banks, has made analytics excellence a key pillar of its mission to promote economic stability within the United Kingdom. Like other central banks, the Bank has relied on data and analytics to formulate policy recommendations. But, since 2008 when it regained its status as a regulator, the Bank has begun using its access to new forms of data to increase its insights and forecasting abilities about the British economy.

Many major cities recognize the opportunity to improve urban life with data analytics, and are exploring how to use information technologies to develop smarter services and a more sustainable footprint. Amsterdam, which has been working toward becoming a ‰ÛÏsmart city‰Û for almost 7 years, offers insights into the complexities facing city managers who see the opportunity with data, but must collaborate with a diverse group of stakeholders to achieve their goals. The city's chief technology officer, Ger Baron, makes it clear that their efforts are still early days: ‰ÛÏI can give you the nice stories that we're doing great stuff with data and information, but we're very much at a starting point,‰Û he says.

GE has bet big on the Industrial Internet — the convergence of industrial machines, data, and the Internet. The company is putting sensors on gas turbines, jet engines, and other machines; connecting them to the cloud; and analyzing the resulting flow of data. The goal: identify ways to improve machine productivity and reliability. This MIT Sloan Management Review case study looks at how this traditional manufacturer is remaking itself into a modern digital business.

American health care is undergoing a data-driven transformation — and Intermountain Healthcare is leading the way. This MIT Sloan Management Review case study examines the data and analytics culture at Intermountain, a Utah-based company that runs 22 hospitals and 185 clinics. Data-driven decision making has improved patient outcomes in Intermountain's cardiovascular medicine, endocrinology, surgery, obstetrics and care processes — while saving millions of dollars in procurement and in its supply chain.

The way health care is billed in the U.S. system is part of the reason costs are so high. WellPoint, one of the largest providers of health care benefits and insurance in the U.S., is using analytics to change its provider payment system. The goal: promote a health care system based on value, not the volume of services. This Data & Analytics Case Study takes an in-depth look at how WellPoint went from idea to implementation, working with physicians and IT staff to build its Enhanced Personal Health Care program.

Facing headwinds from a shifting media industry, executives at Spanish-language broadcasting company Entravision recognized the need to innovate their business model. To get there, they created Luminar, a big data insights division that utilizes about 2,000 external data points to deliver customized, transaction-based insights to marketers about Entravision's Latino audience. The fastest-growing U.S. demographic, Latinos have amassed buying power worth more than a trillion dollars annually.

Caesars Entertainment uses a scorecard to guide managers in its sustainability efforts. Developing the right scorecard took time, but it gave corporate managers an opening for sustainability discussions. Numbers also showed that the more information hotel and casino guests had about the things the company was doing to reduce energy consumption, recycle waste and rebuild the local community, the better they felt about the company — and the more inclined they were to visit again.