At the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference, SAS’ very own Jim Davis, Chief Marketing Officer, gave a great presentation entitled “Analytics – See Business Possibilities You Never Imagined.” He started off by asking the audience a couple of questions: How do we take analytics and make a difference in our organizations? Why is it important?

Jim follows up his question (which is largely rhetorical for this audience of analytic professionals) through examples of businesses that have been challenged with identifying and keeping up with market trends. The real question is: Are we effectively using our data to get in front of these trends and capitalize on emerging opportunities?

Our businesses have become “data obese,” says Jim. We’re not data poor anymore. In fact, the new problem is that the deluge of information paralyzes our ability to make good decisions. The more data and information you throw at someone, the more they freeze. They lose their ability to process the information and make decisions.

So what strategies can you put into play to combat the problem? Data, analytics, and technology platforms play a crucial role, but we’ve got more challenges ahead of us. Jim states, “Analytics is the most abused term in the marketplace.” What we need is a plural definition of analytics; it must be multifaceted. Beyond that, we need to educate our organizations on what analytics are (based on those definitions), and how they can be achieved.

Jim continued on to Gartner’s 2013 predictions for business intelligence (BI). By 2013, a large percentage of BI functionality will be consumed via handheld devices. 40 percent of spending on business analytics will go to system integrators, not software vendors. And 15 percent of future BI deployments will combine BI, collaboration and social software. This speaks to the amazingly fast pace with which technology is changing the landscape for information consumers, and our ability to react to those changes not only from the business, but vendor, perspective.

And mobile is the largest technology enabler for social media. Jim asks us: Do you take it seriously? Is social media important to your future? The Harvard Business Review published in a research paper last year (http://www.sas.com/reg/gen/corp/1207823-pr) that:

• Three-quarters (75 percent) of the companies surveyed said they did not know where their most valuable customers were talking about them.
• Nearly one-third (31 percent) do not measure effectiveness of social media.
• Less than one-quarter (23 percent) are using social media analytic tools.
• A fraction (7 percent) of participating companies are able to integrate social media into their marketing activities.

While businesses are saying “yes, we have to do something with social media,” you can’t just give the responsibility to marketing and public relations and say “see what you can do,” says Jim. It needs to be a two way conversation. So what’s holding people back? Most businesses need to get over a significant learning curve on what social media means and how it can be leveraged. Then the business must put programs in place to move the sentiment needle.

The benefits are there. Social media can help protect your brand, find the biggest influencers in the marketplace, enhance market research and competitive intelligence – and more. Jim referenced an example with the retailer GAP. In late 2010, GAP announced a new logo – a radical change from their iconic blue logo. The online community trashed the new design and they quickly withdrew their plans. In the past, companies like GAP would have held focus groups and conducted research that gave them the same information in 12 months. Now, they can react to the feedback in a matter of days.

Across the topics of data obesity, the analytic imperative, the impact of mobile and social media, the common thread is the ability to change and react quickly to and anticipate market demands. As one of the day’s speakers noted, in the past a traditional company would last 50 years. Now, a typical company has a lifespan of five to ten years. How do we create companies that will last beyond that? Analytics.