Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in Business

Round Table

Organizer and moderator

Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi

Dean and President
ESSEC Business School
vinzi@essec.edu

Featured Talks & Speakers

JEAN-PIERRE BOKOBZA

Senior Managing Director – Global Geographic Sales Lead
Accenture Digital
jean.pierre.bokobza@accenture.com

Short resume

He is dedicated to shaping end-to-end digital transformational deals that help companies rotate to the new by supporting their business to harness the power of disruption and Digital capabilities. He is committed to helping organisations transform in the new Digital ecosystem. He believes that technology is no longer simply a business enabler – it is the driver of unprecedented business innovation spanning virtual and physical realms. He is inspired by collaborating with teams and clients in each of Accenture’s geographies and helping them harness their team’s true Digital potential by unlocking trapped value in their businesses. Under his stewardship, many clients have transformed into an intelligent digital enterprise. He joined Accenture in 1986. Over the course of his tenure he
has worked in diverse roles ranging from managing the sales and business for Accenture’s Business Process Outsourcing businesses across EALA, to leading the sales function for Analytics across the region. His philosophy is to equip his teams with the right ingredients to create the perfect recipe for success. Outside work, he is a father and pilot. He currently resides in Paris with his family.

AI at the heart of outstanding customer experiences.

The future is now and it is all about customer experiences.  But what does a beautiful experience look like?  We explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is enabling a new era of personalization driven by deep insight and predictive optimization.  We will look at how AI enables organizations to sense, comprehend, act and learn, and review how Accenture has put AI at the heart of its role as Innovation Partner at Carnival Corporation to transform customer experiences.

FIKRIA CHAOUKI

Senior expert Advanced analytics & AI for business – Former Vice President of Advanced analytics & AI at Accor
fikria_chaouki@hotmail.fr

Short resume

She contributes to data-driven decisions in today’s disrupted economy, leveraging machine learning, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence, she is a former Vice President of Advanced Analytics & AI at Accor. Before joining Accor, she was a Senior expert at Bain & Company in Paris and New York, working with clients in various industries including financial services, telecommunications, utilities, to build data and analytics-driven organizations and providing end-to-end support, covering strategy and data science. Prior to that, she served as Marketing Science director at Ipsos, in the area of market research, Innovation and brand strategy. Previously, she accomplished numerous assignments as an Advanced Analytics consultant. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Bordeaux University (2001). She also holds an Advanced Graduate Degree in Scientific computing and operation research from Bordeaux University.

How AI & Big Data technology are changing the customer expectation, offering new ways to offer broader and personalized experiences?

Lots of industries are facing the challenges of digital transformation, customer have more choices and are now caring about experience. We will show, through real use cases, how we can leverage the advances in AI and predictive analytics to create unique offers and experiences at scale, that appeal to the needs and desires of each individual customer.

MONICA PRATESI

Full Professor of Statistics
UNIVERSITY OF PISA
monica.pratesi@unipi.it

Short resume

Full Professor of Statistics at the University of Pisa, Ph.D. in Applied Statistics University of Florence in 1993.
She is holder of the Jean Monnet Chair “Small Area Methods for Multidimentional Poverty and Living Conditions Indicators in EU” 2019-2021 (http://sampieuchair.ec.unipi.it).
President elected of the Italian Statistical Society (2016-2020), she is member of the Board of the ISTAT (since 2016).
Since 2012 she is member of the International Statistical Institute and she served as vice President elected of the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS) (2014-2017).
Her research fields include small area estimation, poverty mapping, inference in elusive populations, nonresponse in telephone and Internet surveys, design effect in fitting statistical models. She was scientific coordinator of the several research projects on Small Area Statistics funded by the European Commission and by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.

Data to change: knowledge sharing between research and firms in the statistical analysis of Big data

Technological evolution in the production of data does not always go hand in hand with a cultural evolution, which enables non-specialists to understand and take advantage of innovation. The cultural evolution to understand the key points and meaning of the profiling of the consumption behaviors, reading habits, and attitudes in real time is deeply rooted into statistics and data analysis.

Data and statistical literacy have particular relevance in the activities of companies and firms, when complex analyses are undertaken by teams from diverse backgrounds.

The question on how academics, statistical associations and firms can cooperate to promote and develop statistical literacy to enhance not only change and innovation, but also progress in societies has not yet a clear answer.

JEROEN ROMBOUTS

Head of Information Systems, Decision Sciences and Statistics Department
Accenture Strategic Business Analytics Chair
ESSEC Business School
rombouts@essec.edu

Short resume

Professor Jeroen Rombouts is full professor at ESSEC Business School and member of the Finance and Insurance Laboratory at CREST/ENSAE. He Holds a PhD in Econometrics from CORE-UCL. Before joining ESSEC, he was assistant and associate professor at HEC Montreal between 2004 and 2012. His main research interests are financial econometrics and time series analysis. He is associate editor of Journal of Business and Economics Statistics, International Journal of Forecasting, and Econometrics & Statistics. He is guest editor for the special issue in Nonlinear Financial Econometrics in the Journal of Econometrics. He has published numerous articles in econometrics, finance and statistics in journals such as Journal of Econometrics, Econometric Theory, Journal of Business and Economics Statistics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, etc. He is an expert consultant in business analytics, finance and forecasting.

How are companies using big data today? Some concrete examples.

The private industry is currently putting a lot of efforts to transform their businesses into smart businesses. In fact, the full digitalisation of companies activities’ generates data usable for increasing operational efficiency and for creating new products and services. The characteristics of this data necessitates automated procedure typically using AI. Based on strategic big data analytics case studies from large companies, we give concrete examples of the type of data used, the algorithms and the data valorisation.

STEFANIA RUBRICHI

Research scientist
ORANGE’s SENSE (Sociology and Economics of Networks and Services) Laboratory
stefania.rubrichi@orange.com

Short resume

Her research interests range across the data science domain, at the intersection of social, information and computer science fields. Currently, she works in the area of mobile-phone metadata analysis to uncover insights into human behavior, to ultimately address most challenging global problems, in support of development goals. She holds a BSc and a MSc in Biomedical Engineering and a PhD in Bioengineering and Bioinformatics from the University of Pavia, as well as a MSc in Mathematics for Data Science and Big Data from Ecole Polytechnique Paris.

Mobile Data for Social Good: How Mobile Operators are Building Sustainable and Responsible Business.

ICTs are an important enabler of economic growth and development. Mobile phones technology is experiencing massive penetration rates globally, even in low and middle-income locations, reaching urban and rural populations, across all socio-economic spectra. Each mobile device generates an incredible amount of information that yields unique insights on human behaviour, particularly relevant and promising for the social sector. In 2015, United Nations have called for a ‘data revolution’, as an enabler of evidence-based policies and programs to reach the most vulnerable. Mobile operators are working closely with public agencies and NGOs to establish a common framework and ecosystem that can help provide that information, to eventually improve the lives of billions of people and the environment in which they live. Orange has also supported this cause, launching several initiatives and studies that have shown the value of engaging through and about data.