SAS stands for more than just installation and customizing. I discuss our #IMPACT view of 2021 with Thorsten Hagenberger.
If you're looking for advice on developing an analytics strategy, there's no shortage of resources, including this from SAS: Building your data and analytics strategy. If, on the other hand, you're looking for advice on how to apply analytics to strategic planning, your search has likely to come up wanting.
Utilities, like all large organizations, spend a lot of time and resources on strategy. But how do utility analytics leaders ensure that their efforts are connected to this high-level vision? On June 28th in Los Angeles, a small gathering of utility executives and analytics leaders met to discuss and explore
I moved to Australia from Belgium two months ago for a short-term assignment. I am very concerned by the exchange rate. My dollars have lost over 15% of their value in euros and I share my frustration around me. People tell me, "Just wait, it cannot stay so low, the
Starbucks is a company that has amply demonstrated that it’s about far more than pouring a cup of coffee. Their famous CEO Howard Schultz has boldly led the company to take on social impact initiatives that give their customers the opportunity to participate in those initiatives. Not all of the initiatives
I learned the hard way years ago that writing succinctly is hard work – and worth all the effort. Thanks to a stringent marketing professor who insisted all case write-ups be submitted on a single sheet of paper, I developed a genuine appreciation for good, clean writing and a similar
As social media burst onto the scene as a game-changer for marketing several years ago, a lot of focus was placed on the need for brands to be transparent, authentic and accountable in their interactions. Those have always been hallmarks of good business practices, but what had changed was that social media made it
A great marketing strategy should always include research and reporting components to help sales find “gold” in potential and existing customer data to gain new revenue. Sales teams are always looking to their marketing counterparts to help get new leads to turn them into successful opportunities. It's simply not enough to just provide names
The CMO Council’s Liz Miller thinks mobile is such a huge issue that we absolutely need to talk about it – and I couldn’t agree more. One of the reasons is that there seems to be a slight disconnect between how quickly our customers are advancing in their mobile lifestyles
Kicking off the new year is a great time to assess what's worked and what hasn't, take inventory, check assumptions and do other things to prepare you for a fresh new year. It's also a perfect time to get a broader perspective on world events and what might happen in 2015 that
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” -Dr. Seuss About three months ago, I invited marketers to join me on a journey through the Big Data Archipelago, a collection of 10 islands, each focused on a key big data topic (see island names above). A visit to each
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit the eastern United States came ashore in October 2012. Airbnb, an online matchmaker for travel rentals, was one of several organizations that immediately put big data to
“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.” –Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web Last year, the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) and SAS published the research report, “Big Data in Big Companies,” written by Tom Davenport and Jill Dyché. For this report, they
“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” – Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO Have you read Tom Davenport’s “Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century” article in the Harvard Business Review or Jill Dyché’s fun take-off, “Why
“Human errors and systems glitches caused nearly two-thirds of data breaches globally in 2012.” - Ponemon Institute and Symantec Nothing has accelerated the proliferation and sharing of personal data more than the internet. Some may disagree, but unless you’re living a technology-free life – by choice or not – then
“Data that is loved tends to survive.” – Kurt Bollacker, data scientist Awhile back, I had the pleasure of traveling to five countries in Europe to participate in a 10-day, SAS-sponsored executive roadshow. Jill Dyché, Vice President of SAS Best Practices, kicked off each event with a discussion on data
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.” – Andrew S. Tanenbaum There’s been a lot of buzz about the Location Isle for several years due to a strong interest in its cloud computing territories – private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud. Whereby this
“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” - André Gide Ever heard of OpenOffice, Hadoop, Android, Firefox or MySQL? If so, can you identify the common denominator between these software tools and applications? If you answered, “They’re all
Me: Hey! Orkut is going away. You: Oh, bummer! I didn't realize you had one of your cousins from Hungary in town. Me: *sigh* One of my Facebook friends recently mused in a post about getting a farewell email from Orkut. And she couldn’t remember what Orkut was. To me
“If you build it, he will come.” – From the movie “Field of Dreams” “Build it and they will come” is a popular quote often attributed to the movie Field of Dreams. But guess what? This quote is not from the movie; it’s actually a misquote. [See the actual quote
I like to be reminded from time to time that having a positive attitude has so many better outcomes than the opposite approach. Some people try to make the case that focusing on positive outcomes actually drives positive outcomes, which sounds idealistic, but I think there's some truth to that idea.
“I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” (Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957) Whereby the Analytics Isle tends to be a
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.” - Donald Rumsfeld Welcome to the
One interesting outcome of regulatory reform in health care is seeing the use of the word "customer" filter into the dialogue in the industry. The context for that development in the United States’ health care industry is upheaval not seen in any sector of the economy since the government-mandated breakup
Come along with me on a journey through the Big Data Archipelago. It involves "visiting" a series of islands - an archipelago if you will - that each present a different opportunity to find value in big data. Big data is arguably one of the most overhyped buzzwords in business
Analytics gives us not just the ability but the imperative to separate our planning activities into two distinct segments – detailed planning that leads to budgets in support of execution, and high-level, analytic-enabled business/scenario planning. My critique of Control Towers in this blog last time led me not only to
It’s never been more important for marketing to speak the language of technology (IT) and for IT to speak the language of marketing. Why? Because technology is radically changing the world and marketing and IT have the opportunity to radically change the enterprise together. Yes, the stakes are high and
Leading your organization to faster, better decisions requires skill, agility, resourcefulness and above all - analytics. In marketing, that combination allows the CMO to put the customer squarely in the center of strategy, and align operational execution around the customer focal-point. It's no coincidence that leading organizations, such as the world's biggest retailer,
We’ve talked in the first two posts about how the digitization of everything is disrupting marketing and changing the face of commerce. Organizations are having to change the way they operate, and that’s causing roles in the C-suite to evolve. The digitization of everything is doing three primary things: Increasing
With the increasing emphasis on responsiveness, resiliency, flexibility and agility, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the “agile” concept caught up with strategy itself. While I may have hinted at this idea four years ago in two of my earliest posts for the Value Alley, “Strategy
