Brandon W. Jones

The approach that Gary Loveman used as the COO was very interesting. Rather than go off of feelings and emotions as many people tend to do, he was very analytical in every aspect of his decision making. As he ran Harrah’s, he constantly was using the data that they were receiving from slot players. He constantly mined the data to see trends that were occurring and how they could use that knowledge to better the company.

Data mining is one aspect that he used constantly which is overlooked by many companies. It seems like there are many companies out there that are looking for some special secret sauce from researchers that will solve all of their problems. When they take this approach they are completely discounting all of the data that the company is or could be gathering. By recording data on the customers on a regular basis, they could be seeing trends within their own company.

One of the most successful methods for progress within a company is to find out what you are doing wrong and fix it. Although that may seem very obvious, the only way to find out if a practice is correct in the sense that it draws in more customers is to review the data that you can receive about the customers. Once a company or organization records data they mine the data to identify which methods work and which methods do not work. As a company looks closely at their processes, they will be able to see what they can do better or what they are doing wrong and they can then fix it. Progress is all about finding out and recognizing what you are doing wrong and then fixing it.