Data Analytics v/s Biased Decision Making – Deloitte on Campus

“Data is the new oil”, is what Clive Humby said in 2006 and that is what we at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, believe. Seeking an opportunity to give our beloved Jaguars, the PGDM class of 2018-20, direct exposure to the Data Analytics industry and the possible roles they can play in it, we played host to Mr. Abhimanyu Dasgupta, Head of Science Based Services, Deloitte Analytics & Cognitive and Mr. Samidh Chatterjee Manager in the Applied AI group in Deloitte India (Offices of the US).

Mr. Abhimanyu Dasgupta, specializes in the design, development and deployment of data science algorithms across Insurance and various other sectors globally. He began his journey with Deloitte 13 years ago and has led engagement teams in driving end-to-end data science solutions for leading firms. He has contributed to several industries and data science forums through his points of view, speaking engagements, articles and patents.  He is recognized as one of India’s top 10 data scientists by Analytics India Magazine, 2016.

Mr. Samidh Chatterjee, Manager in the Applied Artificial Intelligence group in Deloitte US-India office at Gurgaon. Mr. Samidh leads the technical team in client projects, and is also one of the mentors in the team for junior as well as senior level folks. Before joining Deloitte, Mr. Samidh used to work for HERE Technologies at their R&D office in Mumbai. Prior to HERE, Samidh was based out of the US and Europe where he worked for Xerox Research as well as in algorithmic trading industry followed by multiple start-ups in the field of location analytics, digital marketing and digital advertisement. He has a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Science (Experimental Algorithms & Computational Geometry) from Florida State University.

The excitement in the room was tangible after the guests were introduced, as the Jaguars realised they were being addressed by two of the top Data Analysts in the country. Over the next hour, our guests enthralled our Jaguars by helping them understand the need of analytics, how it is being used in consulting industry with some real-life implementation examples and finally by explaining the roles aspiring data analysts can play in this industry.

Mr. Abhimanyu started the session with the question, “What is Analytics?”  for the clique. He then went on to ask the crowd to guess the population of San Francisco given that the population of New York is something around 8.5 million. Our Jaguars understood the possibility of a catch, to which Mr. Abhimanyu said, “Humans are heavily biased in their decision making. So, we need analytics to get actionable insights from data and take decisions without any bias. Data science is a business revolution and in turn changing the way we live, work and enjoy our lives”.

“It’s not to say equations can do a better job than experts, it’s about them (equation and experts) working together, proving to be more powerful than just one of them in isolation” stated Mr Abhimanyu. Connecting with the young audience with references from the movie Moneyball, Mr. Abhimanyu tried to drive home the above point. Election campaigns, identifying diseases using analytics and helping doctors in diagnosis and treatment were some of the other examples, all of which supported the fact that data analytics is a tool just like many others and it is about how the tool is used to achieve desired goals. He also explained the concept of General AI, Narrow AI, Cognitive Analytics, Intelligent Automation and RPA, stating that humans right now are somewhere in between the Narrow AI and Cognitive Analytics, General AI being one that is comparable to Skynet from the famous Terminator movies.

Bringing a real-life example to the table, Mr. Samidh explained one of his implementations of analytics for a large telecom provider in US. The project basically aimed at augmenting human supervision with analytics. He also touched upon the biggest challenge chat-bots face, the one where they lack the emotional quotient required to hold meaningful conversations with human beings. Another real-life analytics example shared was identifying the purity of oil by extracting information in real time from the acoustic signals generated during the extraction of oil. This is where the Jaguars’ minds were blown by the amazingly intuitive way of judging the purity of oil by analyzing the sound it makes in a pipe while being pumped out of the ground, practically reducing the time taken to confirm the purity of Oil from several weeks to instantaneous.

To conclude the lecture, our guests drew a clear picture of the skills needed to become a data scientist of tomorrow. Mr. Abhimanyu highlighted that to become a Data analyst the three basic skills required are Statistical/Quantitative knowledge, Coding, and Business Understanding.

The floor was then opened to questions and discussions flowed from the implementation problems of cognitive analytics, business consulting to the coming age of analytics. The audience was awed by the depth of the session and by the presence of a stalwart of Indian analytics zeal. Indeed, a truly remarkable afternoon to remember.

Written by:

Indrajeet Vadgama & Emmanuel Swain, PGDM Class of 2020 “Jaguars”

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon

S&P Global: An Interactive Industry Engagement Session

May 25, 2018

The PGPM Class of 2019 at Great Lakes Institute of Management Gurgaon welcomed executives from S&P Global – Mr Dushyanth Sekhar, Director – Content Automation Robotics & Extraction (C.A.R.E), Ms Nupur Jain, Talent Acquisition Lead, Gurgaon, Ms Rajni Kataria, Analyst, Talent Acquisition, Gurgaon, and Mr Saransh Arya, Content Systems Analyst, Operations Enablement; to speak on the fourth industrial revolution – Robotics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, on Friday, May 25th, 2018.

S&P Global has been providing intelligence that is essential for clients to make decisions with conviction for over 150 years. S&P provides data and analytics, research and commentary, benchmarks and credit ratings through the collective strength of its divisions – S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Market Intelligence, S&P Dow Jones Indices and S&P Global Platts.

Mr Dushyanth said, “Machines are becoming like humans but still a large part of it is mathematical (cognitive computing).” With a higher degree of innovation, S&P Global seeks to reduce the need of human interventions in tasks which are irksome and mundane otherwise.” He emphasized that he strongly believes in the democratization of technology. Growth in technology has paved way for companies to develop better algorithms and influence their market accordingly. Furthermore, machine learning has changed the definition of traditional programming and in the modern times, the output itself is the program. According to Mr Sekhar, the trick is feeding a data set that will teach the algorithm to decipher the data.

Great Lakes Institute of Management also focuses on coupling analytics with business knowledge which gives business graduates of this generation an opportunity to introduce newer concepts to the corporate world. Therefore, this interaction between S&P Global and Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, was a perfect platform for sharing new and innovative ideas in the said fields of Machine Learning, AI and Analytics.

Author: Hita Gupta

PGPM, Class of 2019, Great Lakes, Gurgaon

Sapience 2013 – Annual Management Conclave

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon held its Annual Management Conclave ‘Sapience – 2013’ at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on 23^rd September,2013. The Conclave was graced by Dr. Arvind Mayaram, Secretary Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, as the Keynote Speaker. The Conclave also saw 21 eminent industry leaders participating in panel discussions on key areas for growth and opportunities in this challenging economy.

India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF), Bridgei2i and Evalueserve were the knowledge partners for the Conclave and Mint the Media partner. The guests were welcomed by Mr. Mohan Lakhamraju, Vice Chairman – Great Lakes Institute of Management and Dr. Himadri Das, Director – Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon. 

Dr. Arvind Mayaram delivered the keynote address on the theme ‘Growth Drivers in a Stressed Economy’. With his vast experience as an administrator and as key economic policy maker,  Dr. Mayaram, focused on the key macroeconomic indicators related to the recent volatility seen in the markets, depreciation of the rupee, Current Account Deficit (CAD), Fiscal Deficit and Inflation. He said that on each of these indicators the situation is completely under control and that the Government has done its arithmetic and taken measures to rein these in. Dr. Mayaram expressed a strong belief that the growth would return to its potential level of 8 per cent on account of greater investments in the country and said the investments were likely to pick up because of the large projects that have been cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Investment. Most importantly, Dr. Mayaram was a harbinger of hope that things would get better in the future.

The keynote address was followed by four panel discussions by industry leaders on the four possible growth drivers for the Indian economy – Smart Grids, Natural Gas, Internet & Mobile and Analytics.  Each panel had 5-6 senior industry participants with one of them moderating the panel and each panel discussion was preceded by a presentation by a Great Lakes Gurgaon student to create a background of the discussion with a review of the state of the art.

The themes for the four panel discussions were on the plausible growth drivers in the current stressed environment. The first panel was on Smart Grids and its role in improving the travails in the stressed power distribution sector. This was followed by a panel discussion on Natural Gas, which is expected to help grow the energy sector through an increased presence in the national energy basket mix. The other two panel discussions were in relatively very new sectors as compared to power distribution and natural gas. One of them was on Internet and Mobile and the other was on Analytics. The Internet and Mobile panel discussed innovative business models that have been in play and more innovations to follow, which will disrupt the way products and services are delivered and consumed. The Analytics panel focused on a huge opportunity for India as a global hub for analyzing huge quantities of data to gain actionable business insights that can drive competitive advantage,

Topic 1: Smart Grids – Transforming power to optimize assets and resources

This panel focused on smart grids that can balance loads and shift demand to create smoother demand curves that are aligned with power supply. “Will power availability be a key driver of growth across sectors?” was the question which was answered by the panelists. The panel also discussed the need, practicality and challenges of implementing such schemes and opined that smart grids with a focus on demand response can shift peak demand to different times of the day to get a smoother load curve that is more aligned with power generation. The panel said that this would go a long way in alleviating the power shortages faced during peak demand and reduce the pressure on increasing generation capacity.

The panel comprised of Bridgit Hartland Johnson, Managing Director – Energie Dynamique, Anish De, CEO Asia – Mercados EMI, Chintan Soni, Co-founder and Director – Ecolibrium Energy, Girish Muley, General Manager (Solutions, Energy & Utilities) – IBM India Pvt. Ltd., Gopal Saxena, CEO – BSES Rajdhani Power and Vikram Gandotra, General Manager (Marketing) –  Siemens.

Topic 2: Natural Gas – Playing a bigger role in the energy mix for generation and consumption

The panel discussed the effect of the proposed domestic natural gas price increase on driving investments in exploration and production that would in turn increase the availability of domestic natural gas and change the energy mix in the country to a cleaner fuel basket. The panel also discussed the success and desirability of piped natural gas as a substitute for LPG cylinders.

The panel comprised of Utpal Bhaskar, Energy Editor – Mint, Deepak Mahurkar, Director and Leader (Oil & Gas) – PWC, Karunakaran Hari, Head (Commercial) – Cairn Energy India, Prabhat Singh, Director (Marketing) – GAIL and Vijay Duggal, DGM (Commercial) – BPCL.

Topic 3: Internet and Mobile – The channel of choice for young Indian consumers

The panel witnessed the discussion on young India’s growing appetite for consumption and its overwhelming preference for the internet and mobile as the platform of choice for everything from information to commerce to socializing. The panel discussed the evolution of the Internet and mobile space and the current large categories of search, classifieds, travel, e-commerce, and a whole plethora of social network centric business models and was of the opinion that the future of this sector was likely to witness disruptive business models driven by rich media, mobility, localization, and digital payment systems.

The panel comprised of Ankur Warikoo, Head – Groupon APAC, Anurag Saran, Vice President (Product) –  Yatra, Apurva Chiranewala, Head (Strategic Alliances) – Snapdeal, Vivek Jain, Executive Vice President (Naukri Product & Analytics) – Info Edge India Ltd and Sriram Jagannathan, CEO, AIrtel mCommerce Services (joined through Skype).

Topic 4: Analytics – India as the future global hub

The panel discussed the deluge of data facing businesses today, huge volumes of data coming in at a high velocity from a variety of sources – the dawn of big data. The panel was of the opinion that this presents a huge opportunity for analytics to deliver actionable insights from this data that could drive competitive advantage for companies. The paucity of trained professionals to exploit this opportunity was discussed as a key challenge.

The panel comprised of Sanjoy Roychowdhury, Vice President – Evalueserve, Anurag Verma, CEO – fnMathLogic, Ashish Sharma, Co-founder and Director – Bridge i2i, Raghu Yalamanchili, Associate Director – Mu Sigma and Sivaramakrishnan Narayanan, Partner (Business Analytics, GBS) – IBM.