The 2019 Round-Up of Innovative Companies for EMBA Students

As 2019 comes to a close, some businesses have impacted the world in unique ways, while driving innovation forward. As a professional updating your knowledge and looking to advance your career, this kind of forward thinking can have a large influence over your own professional journey. From using new ways to pitch ideas to correcting gender bias by using artificial intelligence (AI), the following companies are leading the way with their creativity into 2020. Read on for more about who to keep your eye on during and after your studies!

Your EMBA Helps You Appreciate Amazon’s Reinvention

Willingness to embrace change has brought success to many companies over the years. One way that Amazon has stayed innovative is requiring employees to pitch any new idea or product using a mock press release instead of a PowerPoint presentation. That way, a story can be told about the product or idea, which can help determine whether it’s something consumers would actually be interested in.

That sort of innovation has allowed Amazon to keep pushing forward in 2019, launching new upgrades to Alexa, the Echo loop ring, and much more. This shows that companies who are constantly reinventing themselves and don’t just rest on past success have a better chance of becoming innovative leaders. Getting an executive MBA is a great way to increase your breadth of knowledge and give yourself the necessary tools for reinvention in your own path.

Organizing and Implementing Data with Airtable

Airtable is an innovative, 6-year-old startup. Their cloud software is a spreadsheet app that gains its edge from being incredibly user-friendly. Through Airtable, companies can implement a cross of databases and spreadsheets that can serve to accomplish tasks like project planning, customer relationship management and inventory. Examples of companies who use the software are Tesla, Expedia and Time magazine.

Cloud platforms are the way of the future, and by providing custom apps without a need for coding skills, Airtable has even been able to cater to non-business customers who want to make grocery lists or organize personal info.  The launch in early 2018 of a feature called Blocks enabled customers to build custom applications in a user-friendly way linked to their data. One does not need to have coding skills to build these apps, making the feature an advantageous and very marketable aspect of the software.

AI at Disney and Evaluating Stories for Streaming

While Disney is known for their heartwarming stories, they use methods to evaluate their narratives that have nothing to do with hearts at all. AI has been developed by the company that can judge how popular stories will be. The entertainment giant is even using AI to help correct gender bias in its movies.

But AI isn’t the only way Disney has pushed itself forward in 2019. In the summer, Walt Disney World’s Star Wars-themed expansion opened to rave reviews, with a similar expansion planned for Disneyland in California in 2020. And Disney+, its highly anticipated streaming service, debuted in 2019 and is another demonstration of innovation by the giant company. Creating a streaming service specific to Disney brands strategically competes with currently dominant services Amazon Prime and Netflix. While earning your EMBA and making your knowledge more current, you may want to follow the evolution of Disney+ to see how the company decides to tweak and evolve the platform, especially as it prepares to launch in Europe and Latin America.

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