SAS® Global Forum Executive Conference 2008
Successfully Navigating "The World as It Will Be"
Making Business Transformation a Sustainable Strategy
Business and Technology Track
Transforming Business Disruption into Competitive Advantage
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When you make the decision to implement a new technology or business solution, disruptions in your organization's natural flow are inevitable. While challenging in the short run, the opportunities presented by disruption can be pivotal to an organization and catapult it to an entirely new level of success. This is why disruption is a critical force within the business and IT world in particular, and why companies need to know how to take advantage of its potential.
We'll explain why an interruption in business as usual can allow your enterprise to realize a greater return on investment, bring a product to market faster, execute existing tasks more effectively and efficiently, and garner a greater competitive advantage.
Join us and find out how shaking things up can lead to innovation across your organization.
Featured presenters include:
- Apache Corporation
- Computerworld
- Constellation Energy Commodities Group Inc.
- GE Rail Services
- HP
- IT futurist Thornton May
- North Carolina Museum of Art
SESSIONS
| 11:00 a.m. | Embracing Change, Seizing Opportunity Thornton May, IT futurist For whatever reasons (presumably long buried and forgotten), business thinking long ago coalesced around the conclusion that change is bad and must be difficult. We need to fundamentally recalibrate this thinking. Change is natural. Humans sit atop the food chain because we are, in fact, wired for change. Every vertical market has a natural rate of change. When the Dow Jones Industrial Average was created in 1896, it included a dozen "smokestack" stocks selected on the basis of their expected staying power and representation of the economy. Of those 12, only GE remains on the index today. Likewise, of the companies that constituted the original S&P 500 in 1957, 426 (85 percent) had fallen off the list by 1997. The lesson for the general population is clear – change or disappear. The first step is to recognize that substantive change is necessary. This can be easier said than done. Consider this: 40 percent of all commercial airline crashes in the United States are due to CFIT – controlled flight into terrain. In other words, the leading cause of crashes is a team of trained pilots looking at their instrument data and refusing to accept that they are flying into the ground. Their refusal to break their frame of mind leads to disastrous consequences. When you implement a new technology or business solution, disruptions in your organization’s natural "flow" are inevitable. While challenging in the short run, the opportunities presented by disruption can be pivotal to an organization and catapult it to a new level of success. IT futurist Thornton May will explain why an interruption can allow your enterprise to realize a greater return on investment, bring a product to market faster, execute existing tasks more effectively and efficiently, and garner a greater competitive advantage. |
| 1:45 p.m. | Game-Changing Ideas Panel Discussion
Don’t miss this conversation with business leaders who have masterminded transformational – game-changing – ideas and innovations in their organizations. They did it by reaching across industry lines and modifying business processes using BI/analytics and many other creative approaches. |
| 3:15 p.m. | The Big Bang in Business Intelligence Dan Holle, Chief Technologist, Neoview Solutions (HP) "Operational business intelligence" describes solutions that use business intelligence to drive and optimize business operations on a daily or intraday basis, allowing real-time decision making. Theoretically, operational business intelligence enables one to react faster to business needs and to anticipate business problems before they become major issues. Today, operational business intelligence is moving beyond theory. There is now direct evidence demonstrating that when operational business intelligence and enterprise data warehousing are used together, the result can add millions in revenue to the bottom line. This session will explore this evidence, including the current trends and technologies that can help your organization achieve impressive results and minimize risk. Real-world examples will be included. |
| 3:45 p.m. | How the Regulatory Environment Has Changed the Game Businesses such as eBay and Amazon were born with analytics in their DNA. But as more executives begin to understand the value of analytics, there has been a jump in the number of existing companies that are incorporating analytics into their critical business processes. The increased regulatory environment is one of the motivating factors driving this trend – smart companies are learning how to use analytics to turn the burden of regulations into opportunity. This presentation will examine a couple of companies that are in the midst of this transition. |
SPEAKERS
Sean Bolks
Director of Fundamental Analysis, Structuring and Governmental Affairs
Apache Corporation
Sean Bolks is responsible for the research and development of valuation and forecasting models for various commodities around the globe. Bolks holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a doctoral degree from Rice University. He has been a faculty member at Binghamton University and Rice University in addition to working for various companies in the energy industry for the past 10 years.
Keith Collins
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
SAS
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| Keith Collins |
Keith Collins heads the Office of the CTO. Formed in 2006, the OCTO serves as a technical resource and adviser in peer-to-peer discussions with executives in IT organizations. Collins' team helps customers create effective business intelligence strategies through thought leadership, IT domain expertise, anticipating key technology trends that shape clients' needs and by providing IT executives with an architectural view of SAS.
Helping to drive corporate technology strategy with a primary focus on customer- and partner-facing activities, Collins fosters close working relationships with marketing and sales to ensure that SAS technologies are aligned with customer needs and market demand.
Collins led the effort to develop SAS®9, the company's breakthrough platform that is literally redefining business intelligence as it is known today. He is instrumental in developing SAS' industry-specific solutions, which deliver the benefits of powerful analytic technologies into the hands of business users.
Collins joined SAS in 1984 as an R&D liaison for the Technical Support Division and later became Manager of a host development group. Soon after, he managed the data warehousing initiatives, a position he held until being named Vice President of Research and Development in 1997.
A graduate of North Carolina State University with a bachelor's degree in computer science, Collins is a devoted supporter of the university. He is the founding member of the strategic advisory board of the department of computer science. In 2003, the university named him a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus.
Dan Holle
Chief Technologist, BI Solutions
HP
Dan Holle has spent more than 25 years in the data warehousing, business intelligence and analytics industry. Holle, who is based in the United Kingdom, was formerly Chief Technology Officer at Teradata.
Julia King
Executive Editor, Events/National Correspondent
Computerworld
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| Julia King |
Julia King is an award-winning business and technology journalist whose coverage has spanned a wide range of beats, from technology management and IT career issues to IT return on investment issues and global IT sourcing.
King was the founding executive editor of the award-winning ComputerworldROI magazine and spearheaded Computerworld’s coverage of information economics. In her role as Executive Editor for Events, she is responsible for the content of Computerworld’s annual Premier 100 IT Leaders conference as well as IT executive summits and other IT executive programs held throughout the year. She also regularly reports and writes features and special reports for Computerworld and Computerworld.com.
Prior to joining Computerworld in 1994, King worked for nearly a decade as a reporter and writer for national business and technology magazines. She also worked for five years as a daily newspaper reporter and later as a features writer and editor. Her IT reporting has earned her several awards form the American Society of Business Press Editors, and she is a frequent presenter and panel moderator at industry conferences. She edited the book Executive’s Guide to the Wireless Workforce. King holds a master's degree in international relations and a bachelor's degree in political science, both from University of Pittsburgh.Thornton May
IT Futurist, Executive Director and Dean
IT Leadership Academy
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| Thornton May |
Thornton May is one of the premier communicators in the information technology industry today. He combines a scholar's passion for empirical research, an entrepreneur's capacity for identifying opportunities and a stand-up comic's gift for storytelling. He deftly uses all these skills to help executives figure out what comes after what comes next. May is responsible for sculpting executive education IT curricula at four major business schools: UCLA, UC-Berkeley, Arizona State and Ohio State.
From 1997 to 2000, May was responsible for designing and delivering the information technology portion of the curriculum at the University of Amsterdam's Controller's Institute. With James Robinson III, May founded the Director's Institute, a program to improve board-level technology decision making. May served on the doctoral review board at the University of Texas, Austin; he now serves on the advisory board at Comdex.
May has a master's degree in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor's degree in Asian studies from Dartmouth College.
Aram Sogomonian, PhD
Senior Vice President and Head of the Risk Management Group
Constellation Energy Commodities Group (CCG)
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| Aram Sogomonian |
Aram Sogomonian works in the full-service global commodities business of Constellation Energy Group. His responsibilities include taking a lead role in the risk management activities for the CECG business. During Sogomonian’s tenure at CCG, he has demonstrated expertise in team building; project management (including large systems implementation); organizational design; implementing new analytical methods; and improving compliance efforts, including periodic interactions with regulators.
He previously held a variety of management positions at Pacificorp, Edison International and Enron.
Sogomonian has a doctoral degree in management science from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at University of California at Los Angeles, a master’s degree in operations research, and bachelor’s degrees in applied mathematics and economics from the University of California at Berkeley.Caterri Woodrum
Chief Deputy Director and Chief Financial Officer
North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA)
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| Caterri Woodrum |
Caterri Woodrum is responsible for all aspects of business operations and financial performance for the museum and its earned income business units (Blue Ridge Restaurant, the museum retail operations and the NCMA Performing Arts program). Woodrum is an accomplished CPA with more than 20 years of senior financial and managerial experience in long-range planning, budgeting, financial reporting, business operations, public accounting, auditing, consulting and process enhancement. She has been with the museum for three years.
Woodrum’s expertise stems from a strong background in financial and operational management within the pharmaceutical industry in addition to a foundation in public accounting and consulting. She held several positions of increasing responsibility during her tenure at GlaxoSmithKline, including North American Director of Audit and Consulting Services; North American Director of Consolidated Budgeting, Financial Reporting, and Accounting Services; and Controller of Commercial Operations and Administration. Woodrum was recruited into the pharmaceutical industry from her auditing career with Price Waterhouse.
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