Chapter 1. How machine learning applies to your business

 

This chapter covers

  • Why our business systems are so terrible
  • What machine learning is
  • Machine learning as a key to productivity
  • Fitting machine learning with business automation
  • Setting up machine learning within your company

Technologists have been predicting for decades that companies are on the cusp of a surge in productivity, but so far, this has not happened. Most companies still use people to perform repetitive tasks in accounts payable, billing, payroll, claims management, customer support, facilities management, and more. For example, all of the following small decisions create delays that make you (and your colleagues) less responsive than you want to be and less effective than your company needs you to be:

1.1. Why are our business systems so terrible?

1.2. Why is automation important now?

1.2.1. What is productivity?

1.2.2. How will machine learning improve productivity?

1.3. How do machines make decisions?

1.3.1. People: Rules-based or not?

1.3.2. Can you trust a pattern-based answer?

1.3.3. How can machine learning improve your business systems?

1.4. Can a machine help Karen make decisions?

1.4.1. Target variables

1.4.2. Features

1.5. How does a machine learn?

1.6. Getting approval in your company to use machine learning to make decisions

1.7. The tools

1.7.1. What are AWS and SageMaker, and how can they help you?

1.7.2. What is a Jupyter notebook?

1.8. Setting up SageMaker in preparation for tackling the scenarios in- n chapters 2 through 7

1.9. The time to act is now

Summary

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