The Greatest Season in National Basketball Association History

Chicago Bulls
Image: nba.com

Alex Singla, a senior partner of McKinsey and Company in Chicago for nearly 16 years, leads the McKinsey North American Service Operations Practice as well as the Financial Services Practice in the Midwest. In his free time, Alex Singla enjoys watching Chicago sports teams like the Bulls and the Blackhawks.

Between 1995 and 1996, the Chicago Bulls played what many consider to be the finest season of basketball in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Bulls, led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, had previously won NBA championships in 1991, 1992, and 1993. The Bulls began 1995 by winning 23 of their first 25 games. After losing their third season of the game to the Indiana Pacers the day after Christmas, the Bulls began an 18-game winning streak that carried into February.

Chicago lost back-to-back games once all season and endured three one-point losses during the final month of regular-season play to finish with a record of 72-10. In the 1996 NBA playoffs, the Bulls swept the Miami Heat with an average margin of victory of 23 points. The team subsequently defeated the New York Knicks four games to one and the Orlando Magic in a four-game sweep.

In the 1996 NBA Finals against the Seattle SuperSonics, the Bulls won the first three games by a combined 53 points, then dropped consecutive games for the first time in that postseason. The Bulls recovered to secure the championship with an 87-75 victory at home. The 1996 title would mark their first of a second three-peat.

The Internet of Things is the Next Phase of the Internet

Alex Singla is a senior partner with McKinsey & Company in Chicago, where he has worked for more than 15 years. Outside of his professional duties at McKinsey, Alex Singla enjoys spending time outdoors and following technological trends related to autonomous vehicles, big data, and the Internet of Things.

Considered by many to be the third major wave of the Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to connect billions of things to the Internet over the next five or 10 years. The concept revolves around the implementation of web connectivity in everyday items; the transition from the mobile Internet to IoT has already begun, and new connected technologies are constantly emerging in a variety of areas.

Manufacturing companies have started connecting devices within factories as a means to increase automation and reduce operation costs. Consumers now have access to a variety of IoT technologies that support home automation, including connected lighting systems, smoke alarms, appliances, and entertainment devices.

Wearable devices are also in the IoT realm, and they are now a common accessory in today’s marketplace. There are still many areas of life that have not been affected by IoT technologies, but these are expected to shrink considerably over the next 10 years or so.

Guidewire Software, Inc. Hosts Annual Connections Conference

Guidewire Software, Inc.
Image: guidewire.com

Alex Singla, a senior partner for McKinsey & Company, leads McKinsey’s North American Service Operations Practice, advising leading institutions on strategy, organization and business technology. During the 2013 Guidewire Connections Event, Alex Singla served as the keynote speaker and wrapped up the event with a prediction of how future technology would affect the insurance industry by 2020.

The 2013 Connections conference was Guidewire Software, Inc.’s ninth annual user conference, and it took place in San Francisco, California. Guidewire, a creator of property and casualty software for insurers, hosts the event each year to give their community of customers, partners and employees a chance to network and learn about upcoming trends and innovations in the industry.

The 2013 event drew more than 1,000 attendees, showing a 40 percent year-over-year growth. The agenda included close to 90 hands-on workshops, round tables, panels and educational sessions. The 2016 event will take place at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 San Francisco from October 24–27.

GE’s Current: A Major Player in the Internet of Things

General Electric
image: ge.com

A graduate of the University of Illinois with a MBA from the University of Chicago, Alex Singla serves as a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. For over 15 years, he has contributed his expertise on a range of topics, from enterprise strategy to emerging technologies. One area of particular interest to Alex Singla is the Internet of Things (IoT): the ever-growing network of physical objects capable of sending and receiving data.

The Internet of Things is poised to add new layers of convenience, automation, and personalization to countless areas of everyday life. It has a vast array of implications for the home, where sensors embedded in everything from houseplants to heating systems enable users to monitor their living spaces from afar.

Major companies such as General Electric have recently directed their resources toward expanding the burgeoning Internet of Things. In October 2015, GE launched Current, a digital power service. Current offers optimized lighting services for commercial buildings, utilizing GE’S Predix platform to analyze data on energy use and deliver recommendations for cost-effective lighting schemes. Current has already installed LED lights and sensors for major corporations including Intel, Hilton, and Simon Property Group, and achieves savings ranging from 10 percent to 20 percent for its customers.

Current is not alone in the building automation sector. Large firms such as Honeywell and Johnson Controls, as well as startups such as Enlighted and Lucid, all offer similar energy optimization services. Current differs, however, in its intention to bridge energy creation and automation by leveraging GE’s energy resources and utilities partnerships.

Gender Parity in India May Lead to Global Economic Growth

Alex Singla
Image: mckinsey.com

Alex Singla is a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm with a wide global reach, for over 15 years. Also a Certified Public Accountant, he is experienced in strategy, technology, and operations, Outside of work, Alex Singla is an active supporter of the American India Foundation.

India is a region with a huge potential for economic growth, a recent McKinsey Global Institute report suggests, especially if gender parity is improved. Of the ten regions analyzed, India was found to have the highest relative economic value at stake. If all countries improved gender parity, the report argues, the global GDP could grow by $12 trillion a year. India alone could add $700 billion to their GDP by 2025. About 70 percent of this potential would come from increasing women’s participation in the Indian workforce by 10 percent—that’s 68 million women.

In order to move toward better gender parity, and thus a more robust economy in India and beyond, the report recommends eight priority actions. Some suggestions include better education for women, skill building courses, and targeted job creation, as well as programs to promote diversity in the workplace and to address mindsets about women and work.

Lean IT Improves Business Technology

Alex Singla
Image: mckinsey.com

Alex Singla is the leader of the North American Service Operations Practice at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. At McKinsey, Alex Singla works to help businesses and nonprofits grow and succeed through business technology. In this field, McKinsey uses a system called Lean IT.

As more and more businesses join the digital age and rely on increasingly complex technology, Lean IT is intended to help clients standardize and streamline the information and technology modalities within their organizations. McKinsey reports that the Lean Management system has reduced the time it takes to restore IT services by 50–80 percent. Additionally, time-to-market has gone down by up to 25 percent, while productivity went up by 15–20 percent.

By optimizing and streamlining IT practices, helping adjust the mindset and behaviors of the teams involved, and teaching the skills and knowledge those in the organization will need to sustain positive changes, Lean IT aims to serve all of an organization’s business technology needs.

Entering New Markets with an Indirect Approach

Alex Singla
Image: mckinsey.com

A Senior Partner and the leader of McKinsey’s North American Service Operations Practice and a core leader of America’s Insurance practice, Alex Singla is an effective manager and performance driven executive. In his over 15 years with McKinsey & Company, Alex Singla has advised many companies on enterprise strategy and new market entry.

New markets are very attractive to companies. Not only do they provide opportunities for new revenues, but they also hold the key to expansion and growing distribution channels. However, tapping into these markets is not easy.

Many companies that have successfully tapped into new markets have done so by marketing directly to consumers without cannibalizing existing business models, going after popular and growing distribution channels, and competing with established competition.

Successful entrants realize the battle is in generating demand. It is in persuading the customers to take up the new product often by striving to exceed customer expectations, slowly winning the hearts of consumers and growing their loyalty base.

The Zephyr Project – Operating System for Internet of Things Devices

The Zephyr Project
Image: zephyrproject.org

As a Senior Partner of McKinsey & Company and the leader of its North American Service Operations Practice, Alex Singla has advised leading financial services clients on such matters as service operations, digital, analytics, enterprise strategy, and technology. Always alert to the impact of innovative technology, Alex Singla maintains a particular interest in new developments in the Internet of Things.

The “things” in the Internet of Things (IoT) are devices, vehicles, and other objects embedded with data-gathering sensors and electronics which, networked in the Cloud, exchange information and can be controlled remotely. When the data from these connected devices is leveraged and integrated into smart homes, smart grids, and computer-controlled systems, the resulting automation allows for improved efficiency, economic benefit, and new applications, such as smart energy management and intelligent transportation systems.

One major concern for the industry is the software used in both industrial and consumer IoT devices, which require secure, scalable operating systems that provide seamless connectivity. Today there are a multitude of platforms available to developers, including Linux, but industry leaders decry the lack of a standard real-time operating system that works for embedded devices with different architecture and different memory footprints.

To address those concerns, the Linux Foundation in February 2016 announced the Zephyr Project, an open-source, collaborative effort by industry leaders to develop such a real-time operating system to advance the connected and embedded device industry. Supporters of the project include Intel Corporation, NXP Semiconductors N.V., and Synopsys, Inc.

Connecting over Technology for a Better Customer Experience

Alex Singla
Image: mckinsey.com

McKinsey & Company’s Senior Partner Alex Singla advises financial institutions on business strategies, including best practices for providing a great customer experience. Alex Singla stays up to date on customer experience trends by keeping up with industry news, such as a recent study on the insurance customer experience.

A leading customer experience research company collected data on companies in the services industry. Through its surveys, the group has found that the customer experience for buying insurance has steadily declined since 2012, due largely to the insurance company’s inadequate adaptation of technological advances.

The research notes that the moment a customer submits an insurance claim, the situation becomes emotional because the customer wants the claim to handled expediently. Websites and mobile apps are important because they help the customer feel more connected to the insurance company. Additionally, customers often obtain quicker service when conducting business through websites and mobile apps and thus report greater satisfaction with their experiences.

10 Million Fully Autonomous Cars Projected Within Four Years

Autonomous Car
Image: businessinsider.com

Alex Singla is a Chicago-based senior partner with McKinsey & Company, a firm which provides global management consulting services to a wide variety of businesses. Outside of his professional life, Alex Singla is interested in technology, including the development of self-driving cars.

In 2015, the online magazine Business Insider published an article analyzing a report generated by BI Intelligence which contends that 10 million of the autonomous vehicles will be on roadways around the world by the year 2020. In order to make this forecast, the firm took into account the current available technology as well as the barriers standing in the way of development.

The report stated that the necessary technology exists, as evidenced by the fact that self-driving features were present in many modern car models today, including the new Honda Civic and Tesla sedans. Additionally, the Google Self-Driving Car Project has released testing fleets in both Mountain View, California, and Austin, Texas.

BI Intelligence’s findings also reveal that while the autonomous cars may be on the road within the next four years, they will still be user-operated, with fully driverless vehicles not appearing until questions involving regulations and insurance can be answered.