MIT CISR European Int'l Exec. Forum 2024

This new book by Barbara H. Wixom, Cynthia M. Beath, and Leslie Owens was released in September 2023.

All attendees of this Forum will receive a free autographed copy of the book and we'll celebrate with the authors at a Book Launch Reception during the Annual Research Forum.

8:30 AM

Check-in and Welcome Coffee/Tea

9:00 AM

Welcome and Introduction
Austin Van Groningen

9:15 AM

Data Is Everybody's Business
Barbara Wixom
In this session, Barb will describe highlights from her MIT Press book Data is Everybody’s Business (published in September 2023). The book, co-authored with Cynthia Beath and Leslie Owens, presents the fundamentals of data monetization and features research and insights from MIT CISR research and the Data Research Advisory Board. The session will be interactive—and include a discussion of data monetization fundamentals within contemporary contexts like generative AI and external data sharing.

Update on Future Ready
Stephanie Woerner
To become Future Ready, companies are undergoing digitally enabled business transformations—using digital capabilities to transform a traditional enterprise into a top performer in the digital economy. In 2017, MIT CISR unveiled a framework describing what a Future Ready company looks like, the four viable pathways for digital business transformation, and the four types of organizational explosions that companies need to manage as they transform, and we’ve tracked progress and performance since then. In this session, Stephanie will present the latest survey data on the Future Ready framework and highlight recent challenges and opportunities of digital business transformation.

Ecosystem Governance: Decentralization and Web3
Ina Sebastian, Roman Beck and Milan Kumar
In our research, organizations saw their most challenging strategic goals, such as serving their customers’ end-to-end needs or improving sustainability, as being dependent on the actions of other organizations. Effective governance of ecosystems, like good corporate governance, was key to growing value. In this session, we will introduce three types of ecosystem governance—‘Alpha,’ ‘Representative,’ and ‘Liquid’—and explore when ecosystems should adopt more decentralized governance approaches, including emerging innovations in Web3-enabled governance, to grow value. We will discuss current opportunities for enterprises from Web3 decentralization in governance and beyond.

8:30 AM

Welcome Coffee/Tea

9:00 AM

Making Talent a Competitive Advantage
Nick van der Meulen
In the face of relentless change, an organization’s resilience hinges on transforming its workforce adeptly. Bridging technical skills gaps and navigating shifting employee expectations are no longer options and are increasingly becoming necessities. Nick will unpack diverse strategies for addressing these challenges, highlighting how one organization used machine learning to infer employee skills via a platform that enabled both strategic workforce planning and personalized development opportunities for employees.

11:00 AM

Scaling AI: Sustaining AI @Scale
Barbara Wixom
This session extends the MIT CISR scaling AI research to include the management of large numbers of AI models and model interdependencies. Barb will present findings from this year’s AI scaling research, which will feature a case study of AI model management at Cemex. The session will be interactive —and include a discussion of the implications of scaling AI for the IT unit, data science talent, and firm investments.