Though this is a busy time of year for SAS’ Education Division with the second A2010 Analytics Conference in Copenhagen and the thirteenth M2010 Data Mining Conference both just recently completed, I had the opportunity to catch up with Bob Lucas, PhD, who oversees statistical training at SAS. Anne: Bob,
Tag: business analytics
Customer segmentation is a very basic component of most modern marketing strategies. The process involves dividing a customer base into groups of individuals who are similar in specific ways that matter in the context of your marketing programs. You can use segmentation to target groups effectively and allocate marketing resources
Let's face it: ever since cats learned how to access the Internet, they've managed to besmirch their prestigious status as the "smarter-if-a-bit-aloof" pet. They've starred in many demeaning YouTube videos, bringing shame to their species for the sake of some cheap laughs. But I'm here to tell you: there are
In a classic Saturday Night Live skit back in the 70s, Dan Aykroyd portrays a man promoting his book about being mauled by a bear. Aykroyd says, “I want to emphasize – Never feed a marshmallow to a grizzly bear like this” He places a marshmallow partly in his mouth
This is the second in my two-post interview series with Gert Laursen and Jesper Thorlund, authors of the book, Business Analytics for Managers: Taking Business Intelligence Beyond Reporting. Part one covered data visualization and the cross-functional purpose of business analytics. Here, we talk about analytic talent, measuring innovation and educating
More than 30 Premier Business Leadership Series attendees gathered for a roundtable discussion of social media in retail. "Is Your Company Antisocial? How to Effectively Engage Consumers Through Social Media and Mobility," was hosted by Michelle Thomas, Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Zappos. She was joined by Lori Schafer and
When Chris Brogan started his social media marketing agency New Marketing Labs, he stated that he would only work with Fortune 100 companies. He had no clients at the time, but lo and behold, Fortune 100 companies came calling. Now the agency’s client list includes Sony, Microsoft, PepsiCo, all of
How do you maintain a local feel in a central organization of 810 department stores in 45 states? Speaking at The Premier Business Leadership Series in Las Vegas, Steve Nevill, Executive Vice President of Inventory Management and Support for Macy’s.shared how the retailer (which had $23.5 billion in sales in
Organizations have massive amounts of data at their disposal, yet they often fail to utilize it in any meaningful way. But analytics is enabling many firms to aggressively use their data in key business processes with impressive results. You have more information at hand about your business than ever before,
Jim Davis, SAS CMO’s keynote address at the Premier Business Leadership Series this morning was about anticipating and managing change, including these six questions all organizations need to ask: Where should we leverage business analytics? Any part of a business can benefit, but the payoff is greatest where you are
Monster.com was the pioneer in the online recruitment industry. To maintain its competitive advantage more than a decade later, the company has taken the data-driven road using research, business intelligence and predictive analytics. Jean-Paul Isson, Vice President of Global BI and Predictive Analytics at Monster Worldwide spoke today about how
At the Premier Business Leadership Series today, Paul Arsego of Northeast Utilities offered up these ten steps to advancing business analytics adoption – to a packed house of attendees. Given the standing room only for his presentation – and the attendance at this conference -- it seems that people are
I recommend the book Business Analytics for Managers: Taking Business Intelligence Beyond Reporting for managers who want a strategic view on what it takes to create ongoing value from data. To tap into more of the strategic thinking in this book, I asked authors Gert Laursen and Jesper Thorlund a
Anne Milley: Congratulations on the success of the now two-year-old and growing Predictive Analytics World (PAW) conferences! What's the best way to learn about the conference? Eric Siegel: Thanks! Well, there are overviews of Predictive Analytics World DC (Oct 19-20) and Predictive Analytics World London (Nov 15-16), but in fact
It's webinar time again! This hour session is designed for business analysts, directors of analytics and BI, and business users on the topic of Centers of Excellence. This live "101" webinar will take place live on Aug. 18, and it's the fifth installment in the 2010 Applying Business Analytics Webinar
A new SAS Analytics Facebook page helps customers, prospects, partners and employees connect via a larger online community. As part of our efforts to reach out to customers and raise awareness about analytics, we created a SAS Analytics Facebook page, and it's ready for you to "like." What's to "like"?
Several of us at SAS are gearing up for the 16th annual ACM SIGKDD conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. If you are not familiar with this, it is the premier international forum for data mining researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and government to share their ideas, research
~ Contributed by Jens Olivarius ~ Wednesday at The Premier Business Leadership Series in Berlin, Futurist Thornton May challenged a group of international business executives with this question: Has the way people think about analytics changed over time? The response was a resounding yes, but for several different reasons. Yes,
On Wednesday the 23rd June, Tom Davenport, best-selling co-author of Competing on Analytics and Analytics at Work and President's Distinguished Professor at Babson College, led a masterclass of 20 business leaders in examining how organisations go from being analytically impaired to analytical competitors. In Tom’s view, most companies have massive
Next up in the SAS Applying Business Analytics Webinar Series is Forecasting 101! This Webinar is appropriate for anyone involved in the creation, review or utilization of forecasts: demand planners and forecast analysts who generate forecasts; managers in sales, marketing, finance and operations; and executives who oversee the forecasting and
Since deregulation, the energy and utilities industries have counted among the most complex, posing virtually insoluble problems thanks to a variety of trends and counter trends. That was the key conclusion of discussions in the Energy & Utilities insight session at The Premier Business Leadership Series, which was led by
In his introductory address, public sector session moderator Thomas Spiller of SAS neatly summed up some of the biggest challenges faced by national governments: dealing with the current economic climate and managing a crisis of confidence within their governments. In his experience, government responses seem to fall in to three
This is the second entry in my series interpreting what it means for Chief Marketing Officers to become analytical marketers. Part 1 in the series, which covered planning, can be found here. This post describes phase two, the project kick-off. I'll start by listing phase two objects, and then provide
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows the perils, real or imagined, of product flaws in this emerging age of social media. Proctor & Gamble is a highly admired company especially for its careful stewardship of its many premier brands. Can it be that any American mother, in
While reading a datadoodle blog post, Self tracking is business intelligence, I was taken back to my days in the advertising and PR agency world. The blog references Peter Drucker’s book, The Effective Executive that suggests tracking your day (or having your secretary do it) in increments of 15 minutes
It is that time of the year again! Rexer Analytics, a data mining consulting firm, is conducting their fourth annual data mining survey. The survey collects preferences, views and interests of data mining professionals (e.g. data miners, statisticians, modelers, analysts, etc.). SAS is not the sponsor of the survey. The
I edited my first issue of sascom magazine in the second quarter. Despite her new responsibilities, former Editor-in-Chief Alison Bolen made herself available for my many questions, concerns and frantic messages asking: “Does this sound okay??” It all came together, and we even debuted a new column on business analytics,
SAS and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) have announced the release of the 2010 EIU report, "Rebuilding trust: Next steps for risk management in financial services," sponsored by SAS. The 2010 report includes the results of an online survey - that attracted 346 global respondents, all executives with risk management
In their book Analytics at Work; Smarter Decisions, Better Results authors Tom Davenport, Jeanne G Harris and Robert Morison describe a 5-stage process to becoming an Analytical Competitor. In this series of articles, I am going to describe my interpretation of what it means for CMOs to become analytical marketers,
The SAS Social Media Analytics product launch was a huge hit with the press at SAS Global Forum. I wrote about it below, a lot of analysts and social media pros are blogging about it too, and it seemed for at least a few hours last Monday that everyone on