That was then. Now is Power BI. The Excel killer?

Shared office provider, WeWork, has filed paperwork to enable it to list its shares on the US stock market as it seeks further funds for expansion.

Founded in the US in 2010, WeWork is already London and New York's largest private office occupier.

But it has yet to make a profit, with losses last year doubling to USD1.9 billion.

The firm's business model is based on short-term revenue agreements and long-term loan liabilities.

Ratings agencies have given it a "junk" or risky credit score because it has borrowed heavily to fund its expansion.
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Despite this, the firm - which operates in 600 cities globally - was valued at some USD47 billion by private investors when it raised fresh funding in January.

​Source: BBC, UK

A simple explanation of machine learning (ML). You don't need a Phd or even a degree to use ML, just use it.

Digital disruption is much more than an abstract concept promoted by analysts and vendors; it is now a reality for most organizations.

More than one-third of executives in a recent Forbes Insights/Treasure Data survey say they are being directly affected by competition from digital and data-savvy players in their markets.

What does it take to embark on a data-driven disruption journey? Here are some ways to get started:

1. Creating new markets or leveraging the power of information to offer solutions in new ways.

2. Be the disruptor.
The best way to fend off disruptors is to become the disruptor. Shift their business models using data-driven products and services, or by linking up with digital-savvy players.

3. Surface your data assets.
With the influx of data that an increasingly digital world creates about customers, access to clearly organized, consolidated data is crucial. Think of ways to create entirely new products or services through new channels.

The most likely form of disruption is through the actual monetizing of information technology.

​The disruption that is radically reshaping today’s markets, as well as creating new ones, is driven by data, with the goal of enriching the customer experience, and delivering goods and services on demand without so much as a hiccup in supply chains or response systems. To accomplish this, data needs to move fast, seamlessly and be accessible.

As Holger Hürtgen and Niko Mohr, of McKinsey, recently put it:

Those organizations leading the way and digitally disrupting their markets have learned to employ customer data in new and innovative ways not simply to be disruptors, but to provide superior customer experiences.

​Source: Forbes Insights (click on image to read more)

He is more popular on social media than Madonna or Oprah Winfrey, but you might never have heard of him. Kai-Fu Lee has become the face of Chinese tech, his name synonymous with a country itching to take on the world.
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Lee spent his formative years helping charter a path of innovation for companies such as Microsoft and Apple, but it was when he spearheaded a failed attempt to bring Google to China that everything changed for him. Lee left Google in 2009, to set up his own venture capital fund, Sinovation Ventures.

Lee's new book, AI Super Powers, was published in September.

Here is a good summary of the future of AI according to Lee:

Data blending or creating relationship with multiple data sources is one of the most useful features in reporting.

By default, charts in Data Studio get their information from a single data source. Blending lets you create charts based on multiple data sources, called a blended data source. For example, you can blend two different Google Analytics data sources to track the performance of your app and website in a single visualization.
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Blending can reveal valuable relationships between your data sets. Creating blended charts directly in Data Studio removes the need to manipulate your data in other applications first, saving you time and effort.

During the Computing Conference 2016 held in Hangzhou on 13 October, Jack Ma, founder and CEO of Alibaba, reviewed the technological progress in the past few years and predicted that the future would be mainly about new type of retailing, manufacturing, finance, technology and resource. Development in these five areas will impact not only China, the world beyond, but also every one of us.

1. New type of retailing. Traditional retailing face rising challenge from e-commerce in modern metropolis because it fails to seize the opportunity and adapt to the future trend. Traditional business only dwells on the past, but don’t know how to adapt to new technologies, how to cooperate with internet companies and how to make us of big data technologies, etc. Whether we admit it or not, traditional retailing business, featured by real estate, will certainly be challenged in the future. If it is not today, then it will be someday in the future.

2. New type of manufacturing. For the past two or three decades, scale and standard are attached high importance to; in the next three decades, however, customized, personalized and smart service will be the new trend. The second wave of technological revolution will occur in IoT field. In the future, machines depend not on electricity, but on data. Besides, as retailing industry evolves, manufacturing industry will also gradually transform from B2C-based to C2B-based.

3. New type of finance. Finance industry was the very support for industrial growth in the past two centuries. In the past, development of 20% of small and mid-sized companies could promote development of 80% of world economy. In the future, however, the core focus of finance industry should become how to facilitate development of 80% of small and mid-sized companies. After the birth of internet finance, equality and transparency will be valued more, thus traditional finance industry will certainly face some challenge.

4. New type of technologies. After the emerge of mobile internet, PC chips evolved into mobile chips, while PC operating system also evolved into mobile operating system. In the past, machines depend on electricity; in the future, data will be at the core of any new type of technology. New technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data will only broaden the room of imagination for the mankind.

5. New type of resources. In the past, petrol and coal were the foundation of development; in the future, new energy and data will be at the core of any development. Dr Wang Jian once said that this was the first time human kind created a new type of resources. In the past, resources others had used would become useless; today, however, data other people used would only become more valuable if we use it well.
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Source: tmtpost

Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools to analyze data and share insights. Power BI dashboards provide a 360-degree view for business users with their most important metrics in one place, updated in real time, and available on all of their devices. With one click, users can explore the data behind their dashboard using intuitive tools that make finding answers easy.

​Creating a dashboard is simple thanks to over 50 connections to popular business applications, complete with pre-built dashboards crafted by experts that help you get up and running quickly. And you can access your data and reports from anywhere with the Power BI Mobile apps, which update automatically with any changes to your data.
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If you are a data analyst delivering reporting and analytics to your organization, Power BI lets you be productive and creative with what you build. Power BI Desktop is a feature-rich data mashup and report authoring tool. Combine data from disparate databases, files, and web services with visual tools that help you understand and fix data quality and formatting issues automatically. With over 20 built-in visuals and a vibrant community of custom visualizations, create stunning reports that communicate your message effectively. With the Power BI service, publish reports securely to your organization and setup automatic data refresh so everyone has the latest information.

Power BI can unify all of your organization’s data, whether in the cloud or on-premises. Using the Power BI gateways, you can connect SQL Server databases, Analysis Services models, and many other data sources to your same dashboards in Power BI. If you already have reporting portals or applications, embed Power BI reports and dashboards for a unified experience.

During this challenging time, this is a good reminder to you and your team.

​There are always opportunities in crisis. Just keep on looking and most importantly, stop complaining.

China’s biggest e-commerce company is going public. With a valuation that could reach USD200 billion, Alibaba could be the second-largest Internet company in the world, behind only Google. The man behind Alibaba is Jack Ma, a former English teacher.

There are many management and entrepreneurial lessons to be learned from Jack Ma. Check out this interesting article: Billionaire Jack Ma teaches you how to be successful in life and business.

The journey of Jack Ma in Alibaba can be viewed in this movie (full movie coming soon): Crocodile in the Yangtze.

Here is Jack Ma, who delivered the closing keynote address "China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce", hosted by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, on 30 September 2011. 

Why do people feel so miserable and disengaged at work? Because today's businesses are increasingly and dizzyingly complex. Traditional pillars of management are obsolete.

“The real battle is not against competitors. This is rubbish, very abstract. When do we meet competitors to fight them? The real battle is against ourselves, against our bureaucracy, our complicatedness.”

“Now, in front of the new complexity of business, the only solution is not drawing boxes with reporting lines. It is basically the interplay. How the paths work together. The connections, the interactions, the synapses. It is not the skeleton of boxes, it is the nervous system of adaptiveness and intelligence. You know, you could call it cooperation, basically. Whenever people cooperate, they use less resources.”

The key is collaboration. We should not put employees into boxes, who tend to protect their own turfs. Collaboration is essential in business management.

The 6 rules to simplify are:
1. Understand what your people do
2. Reinforce integrators
3. Increase total quantity of power
4. Extend the shadow of the future
5. Increase reciprocity
6. Reward those who co-operate

"Blame is not for failure, it is for failing to help or ask for help" 
Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO Lego Group.

Watch this refreshing and engaging TED video by Yves Morieux to learn more:

Let's start with the definition:

"When the prices of assets (physical or financial assets) rise so sharply and at such a sustained rate that they exceed valuations justified by fundamentals, making a sudden collapse likely - at which point the bubble bursts"

Is there an asset bubble building up in Malaysia? It is not a bubble until it is officially denied.

Most SMEs in Malaysia are using either MYOB or UBS as their accounting software, which are essentially desktop software (meaning you have to purchase the software and install on your computer or server). You have to do your own regular backup and pay for upgrades when new versions are available.

With the emergence of cloud software, you now have more alternatives. You don't have to purchase and install accounting software anymore. 

Rich and successful people have their special traits. Hard work, think big, innovative, integrity and risk taking are some of the "ingredients" that make them rich and successful.

Here are the words of wisdom from Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Howard Schultz, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson etc:

Strategy without execution is pure hallucination. It's not about the business idea that counts, but its execution.  In fact, execution is probably one of the biggest competitive advantages that companies typically overlook.  

Time are spent on looking for the next "great idea".  Meetings are all talk or analysis or planning, with no decisions made. Obsolete procedures are still used, which in turn slow down execution.  People at the bottom of hierarchies are afraid to ask even when they know what to do and can take action quickly.   

If the above scenario is part of your corporate culture, it is time to redefine your role as the Chief Execution Officer.  

How do smart leaders translate strategy into execution? In the article by Harvard Business Review, the right way is to:

1. Get the right people in the right place
2. Communicate and share the strategy with your workforce
3. Establish strategic performance feedback (limit to 15 - 20 measures)

Try to follow The 4 Disciplines of Execution ...

Most companies are innovative especially in their sales and product development (front end).  However, the back end (e.g. accounting) may still operate in the same manner for the last 20 to 30 years.  How do you know if your accounting people are up-to-date? Easy.

If they are still using dot matrix printer, something is terribly wrong.  Common excuses include: we have to print invoices and payment vouchers in duplicates, accounting documents must be printed with NCR papers etc etc.  These excuses further confirm that the accounting procedures used are as obsolete as the printer.

Time to innovate, front end and back end.  For Generation Y, here is a picture of the noisy "device". 

If you are a startup, you need to behave like one.  Forget about vision and mission.  Don't waste time on pages of business plan (which in most cases, are conceptual at best), detailed cash flow projection (which will never materialise) etc etc.  You only need all these at later part of the business life cycle.

As startup, all you need is a good idea, a real purpose (profit is not a purpose), one-page biz plan and work your butt out.  You don't even need to have funding to start your business. Just do it. Impossible is nothing.

If you are a startup, it is critical to have a business model.  It does not have to be complicated or run into many pages. In fact, a one-page summary is usually sufficient.  The main areas are: who are the target customers and where revenue comes from. Just keep it simple and sweet.  If you are already operating your business, it is always good to re-visit your business model to ensure it is still relevant and competitive.

Here is a simple and informative video, explaining the key areas (building blocks) of a business model.