I'm an avid Star Wars fan, and am cautiously optimistic about what J.J. Abrams intends to do in Star Wars VII. The cast for the movie was revealed earlier this week, and today is May the Fourth, an unofficial Star Wars holiday. You might be asking yourself what any of
I led an analytical culture track at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference last month in Washington, DC. I talked with leaders in fields as diverse as healthcare, chemical manufacturing and government. Although these organizations have very different operating models, their challenges, comments and questions were similar. They all recognized
Principle 4: Completeness – A bank should be able to capture and aggregate all material risk data across the banking group. Data should be available by business line, legal entity, asset type, industry, region and other groupings, as relevant for the risk in question, that permit identifying and reporting risk
In our hyper-connected world, information technology plays a key role in nearly every field and industry. Higher education is no exception, and that’s where EDUCAUSE comes in. This non-profit association works to advance higher education through the use of information technology. One of the primary ways EDUCAUSE achieves its goal
Solving the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 hinges on the finding the plane's black boxes, or flight data and cockpit voice recorder. An airplane’s black box is something we hope never has to be used, but when there’s a problem, we sure are glad that it’s there. The black
I’ve been to a fair number of SAS User Group International (SUGI) and SAS Global Forum conferences over the years, but I don’t think I’ve been to one as productive, well-organized and fun as this year’s conference in Washington DC. Part of what made the conference very relevant for many
Principle 3: Accuracy and Integrity – A bank should be able to generate accurate and reliable risk data to meet normal and stress/crisis reporting accuracy requirements. Data should be aggregated on a largely automated basis so as to minimize the probability of errors. It seems logical that banks would want
Principle 2: Data architecture and IT infrastructure – A bank should design, build and maintain data architecture and IT infrastructure which fully supports its risk data aggregation capabilities and risk reporting practices not only in normal times but also during times of stress or crisis, while still meeting the other
Principle 1: Governance – A bank’s risk data aggregation capabilities and risk reporting practices should be subject to strong governance arrangements consistent with other principles and guidance established by the Basel Committee. My colleagues and I have written a series of posts on the principles of BCBS 239. In this
Judging by the headlines like “Big Data Sparks Corporate Turf Fights” and “5 Things CFOs Hate About IT,” you might think that every IT organization is at odds with the company’s business leaders. But let me ask you, does this look like a group of people at odds with one
Sometimes you have to get small to win big. SAS Data Management breaks solution capabilities into smaller chunks – and deploys services as needed – to help customers reduce their total cost of ownership. SAS Master Data Management (MDM) is also a pioneer in "phased MDM." It's built on top of a data
Interestingly, the Basel Committee’s Principles for Effective Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting (otherwise known as BCBS 239) begins with a quote from T.S. Elliot’s The Rock: Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? In this age of big
“My goal is to constantly improve the quality and stability of our software while at the same time innovating,” said Vice President of SAS Resarch and Development Armistead Sapp yesterday at the SAS Global Forum Technology Connection. Hosted by Product Management Director Michele Eggers, the Technology Connection focused not only on
Are retailers suffering a skills shortage when it comes to analytics? Nikki Baird from Retail Systems Research (RSR Group) offers some intriguing observations about the critical analytical talent shortage facing the retail industry in a recent article, “Where Have All the Data Scientists Gone? SAS Analyst Day Report Out.” Her observations
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
I was recently part of team discussing enterprise architecture with a chief IT architect, and we were explaining how SAS can integrate into their existing infrastructure, add business value on top it and even fit into their future planned infrastructure. This conversation was one of the reasons I blogged about
Interest in "data" is at an all-time high. The popularity of search terms like "big data," "Hadoop" and the "Internet of Things" spiked dramatically in the past year. The fact is, organizations are more interested in the potential of big data platforms and data management solutions than ever before. That’s
In the movie, The Matrix: Reloaded, our heroes and the KeyMaker frantically navigated from world to world through a series of doors and locks trying to escape the villains. Fortunately for our heroes, the KeyMaker always had the right key on his ring, he just had to know what key
Watching the news recently it occurred to me that many of the stories involved data in some way. Many of the reports from the recent Consumer Electronics Show showcased products to enable users to create and use ever-growing personal collections of data. Want data on how well you sleep? No
Lately, there's been lots of buzz around the logical data warehouse (LDW). In fact, Gartner is hearing LDW mentions as part of data warehouse (DW) inquiries almost 20% of the time and considers it a "megatrend." The definition usually includes some use of data virtualization or data federation capabilities to complement
The "Internet of Things" is the latest buzzword characterizing the machine-generated big data that has outstripped our ability to derive value from it. Think of UPS delivering 16 million packages every day through various hubs and all the logistics and decisioning that goes into that. But how does an organization
In the era of big data, Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger noted in their book Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, “we are in the midst of a great infrastructure project that in some ways rivals those of the past, from the Roman aqueducts
Although she’s an analyst, Anca Tilea estimates that she spends 80% of her time cleaning data. Tilea and co-author Deanna Chyn shared seven of their favorite methods for checking, cleaning and restructuring data. Attendees at MWSUG 2013 got a bonus tip: Ask SAS peers in one of the SAS Support
I've written, talked and thought about data management for an entire decade now. In that time, I've collected examples of how data – and the processes for managing that data – can affect our everyday life. For years I used the "Have you ever gotten multiple pieces of mail from
SAS Data Management is a popular topic here on the SAS interwebs. You can find all types of information ranging from thought leadership to white papers to product details. At SAS Global Forum I sat down with Nancy Rausch, one of the principal R&D managers behind the SAS Data Management
I'm happy to announce the SAS Data Management support community has a new look and feel! And there’s lots of additional content and resources now too. The SAS Data Management community on support.sas.com is a central hub for anyone interested in SAS data access, integration, quality and governance. Community Manager
