Attivio: Machine Learning for Strategic Insights
Topics: AI & Machine Learning Big Data / Analytics
Alva H. Taylor
Length: 13 pages
Publication date: 2018
CASE: 2018ATT
Attivio: Machine Learning for Strategic Insights
Professor Alva Taylor, Stephen Baker (CEO, Attivio) and Michael Hanley (T’19 and MBA Associate of the Center for Digital Strategies) prepared this Tuck School of Business case solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
Stephen Baker, CEO of Attivio was having a great day. His company Attivio was just recognized by Forrester as one of the leaders in cognitive search, a relatively new term to describe enterprise search solutions that employ AI technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning to understand, organize, and query digital content from disparate internal and external sources of data and content. Baker had recently received project inquiries from several Fortune 500 companies. The project that intrigued Baker the most was the opportunity to work with HSBC– one of the world’s largest banking and financial services institutions. HSBC inquired if Attivio could solve its problems with identification of financial crime and fraud by its customers. The issue was of utmost importance to the bank in 2017 as it had just overcome recent sanctions due to failure to detect such incidents. The project was exciting but Baker wanted to be sure to continue the successful momentum of the company and wondered if the problems faced by HSBC were in the sweet spot for Attivio’s methodologies and technologies. The company could not afford to slow its string of achievements or allocate resources that could be used on one of the many other project opportunities that the recent positive press was generating.
