Interactive Breakout Sessions | Workshops
Interactive Breakout Sessions
Wednesday, October 10
Choose from a variety of concurrent interactive breakout sessions featuring industry experts and thought leaders sharing how they have been able to innovate, optimize and transform the way they do business.
Each session lasts approximately 45 minutes, including 15 minutes for Q&A.
Accurately Predict Your Future Outcomes
Speakers:Tim Rey, Director, Advanced Analytics, Dow Chemical; Jeremy TerBush, Vice President of Global Analytics, Wyndham Exchange and Rentals; Kathy Lange, Senior Director, SAS Americas Business Analytics Practice (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan III
Data-driven business decisions are based on using the information and insights you can get from understanding your data to its full extent. Forecasting techniques allow you to estimate trends, patterns and systematic behaviors that affect your business. Analytics-based forecasting enables you to know the likelihood of future outcomes so you can take the most appropriate actions to gain the best results. In this panel you will learn how leading organizations incorporate forecasting in their business decisions.
Back to TopAgile Analytics and Reporting for Risk
Speakers:Andy Mumma, Vice President of Risk Management, Wells Fargo
Room: Neopolitan I
At Wells Fargo, the rapidly changing business environment demands more accurate information, more quickly and in more detail to help manage risk. The Wells Fargo Risk Management organization has developed a solution that allows it to be proactive and agile in meeting these demands across many groups within the organization. This is done through an analytics and data environment that delivers both analytic and reporting solutions to the risk management group and its partners, while empowering the teams to solve problems faster, deliver more content, and ultimately be more productive than what was accomplished through legacy systems.
Back to TopAnalyze Your Way to a Better Future: How Young, Innovative Companies are Using SAS® to Grow Their Businesses
Speakers: Arthur Sweetser, CMO, 89 Degrees; Tamara Gruzbarg, Senior Director of Analytics and Research, Gilt Groupe; Matthias Kehder, CEO, Modern Analytics; Mark Jeffries (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan IV
Do you think SAS is the exclusive province of Fortune 500 companies? Think again. You don’t have to be a multibillion dollar business to derive value from SAS. Meet this panel to learn why young, innovative companies are turning to SAS to sprint ahead of their competition and optimize their performance.
Back to TopBig Data: Reality or Hype?
Speakers: Vincent Dell’Anno, Big Data Practice Lead, Accenture; Tony Hamilton, Enterprise Marketing Manager for Big Data, Intel; Chris Twogood, Vice President of Product and Services Marketing, Teradata; Scott Van Valkenburgh, Senior Director of Alliances, SAS (moderator)
Room: Milano I
In the rapidly expanding world of analytic tools, organizations are finding it hard to determine which technologies and tools will have staying power. Choosing the right tools is a critical effort because they represent a major investment. In this session, Intel, Teradata and Accenture will lead a discussion about the evolving technological landscape and effective approaches to prioritization and experimentation.
Back to TopBig Data and SAS® High-Performance Analytics: Empowering Your Enterprise
Speaker: Mark Pitts, Director, Data Science, Solutions and Strategy, UnitedHealthcare
Room: Neopolitan IV
The volume, variety and velocity of data flowing into your enterprise present challenges that can be difficult to overcome. Yet overcoming those challenges is imperative to remaining competitive and driving return on investment. Regardless of your industry, one of the key constraints is not technical, but human: The talent to extract value from big data is extremely rare and very much in demand. Maximizing the effectiveness and productivity of your data talent is a prerequisite to success. To that end, UnitedHealthcare has partnered with SAS and EMC Greenplum to pilot SAS High-Performance Analytics on the EMC Greenplum Data Computing Appliance (DCA) for multiterabyte-scale data. This presentation will describe our proof-of-concept project and show how SAS High-Performance Analytics reduces the cycle time for analytics efforts, while providing better results than more traditional approaches. Finally, we will discuss our intent to deploy the SAS High-Performance Analytics DCA to provide data analytics as a service (DAaaS) to data scientists across UnitedHealthcare.
Back to TopBuilding Customer Loyalty and Retention in Today’s Digital World
Speakers: Charlie Shin, Head of CRM and Fan Engagement, Major League Soccer; Darren Jacoby, Director of Customer Relationship Marketing, Vail Resorts; Wilson Raj, Global Customer Intelligence Director, SAS (moderator)
Room: Milano V
In today’s landscape of empowered customers, dizzying technological advancements and globalization, it’s never been more important to focus on customer loyalty. This panel discussion centers on the mindsets and processes that drive effective customer loyalty and retention efforts in the wake of changing market and customer dynamics. Hear how forward-thinking organizations create customer experiences that provide additional value instead of just increasing rewards to the customer. Learn how to:
- Craft loyalty programs based on customer analytics.
- Bolster loyalty across multiple channels.
- Design customer experiences that promote brand affinity using insights from customer analytics fueled by transactional and other data.
Cooking Up Customer Success with High-Performance Analytics
Speaker: John Strain, CIO, Williams-Sonoma
Neopolitan II
Founded in 1956, Williams-Sonoma Inc. is the premier specialty retailer of home furnishings and gourmet cookware in the United States. Its brands are among the best known and most respected in the industry. With a portfolio that includes Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids, its focus is delivering technologies to support the corporate vision of enhancing customers’ lives at home. Hear how managing big data, developing solutions that integrate well with cloud-based delivery services, and driving personalization and relevance at all customer touch points are driving real change to support execution at the intersection of lifestyle merchandising and analytics. Find out how Williams-Sonoma uses high-performance analytics to grow the business and increase customer satisfaction through more accurate and targeted marketing.
Back to TopCustomer Experience Transformation Using Big Data and Analytics
Speaker: Jim Bampos, Vice President, Total Customer Experience, EMC
Milano V
Our objective: using a data-driven, customer-centric approach to provide the information necessary to improve products, services or processes, and therefore enhance the customer experience and create a business advantage. EMC’s Total Customer Experience (TCE) team centralized customer feedback across the enterprise, defined agreed-upon customer quality metrics that aligned with the customer’s success, designed a platform for data capture with analytics and reporting, and developed clear prioritization frameworks for acting on recommendations. EMC’s TCE transformation includes demonstrating how customer loyalty translates into customer value by analyzing a mix of customer feedback data, operational data and financial information. EMC’s use of integrated customer intelligence has already advanced the company’s knowledge about its customers, along with recommended actions to improve customer experiences and optimize business outcomes. The discussion will focus on how the customer experience program was developed, our journey through big data and analytics, our challenges and results, and how the program is positively affecting the business and our customers.
Back to TopDriving Customer Conversions Through Superior Merchandising Decisions
Speakers: Amy Wooden, Executive Vice President, Belk; Harris Mustafa, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain and Merchandise Planning and Allocation, DSW; Anthony Volpe, Director of Analytics Advancement, SAS (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan II
DSW is the shoe shopping destination for style-conscious women and men who appreciate value. With thousands of shoes, great prices and an ever-changing inventory, the brand captures the imagination of shoe lovers nationwide. Belk Inc. is the nation's largest privately owned mainline department store company, with more than 300 stores in 16 southern states and sales totaling $3.5 billion in its past fiscal year. Find out how these two retailers are managing in-stock inventory and strengthening their store experiences by integrating size optimization with merchandise planning, purchasing and allocation systems. In this session you will learn best practices on how analytics and optimization can strengthen your brand and build customer equity.
Back to TopEnterprise Data in Action: RBS Citizens Puts the Business First
Speakers: Martha Avstreih-Ross, Executive Vice President, Head of Enterprise Information Management, RBS Citizens Bank; Jill Dyché, Vice President, SAS (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan I
Over the past 20 years, RBS Citizens acquired 26 banks and grew from $3.2 billion to $132 billion in assets. As a by-product, it accumulated or developed multiple data marts, reporting solutions and spreadsheets, resulting in information fragmentation and exacerbating existing silos. In response to regulatory requirements from Basel II/III, FASB ASC 220 and Dodd-Frank, the bank’s data integration efforts focused on capital and risk management. RBS Citizens’ management team recognized that taking a broader view of data integration would help the bank improve all aspects of business execution and provide even more economic value. In 2011, the bank embarked on a bold enterprise data initiative (EDI) to streamline its data quality, management, provisioning and reporting processes. Upon completion, EDI will institutionalize data-driven behaviors, using SAS® technologies to automate and enable critical business processes.
In this session, Martha Avstreih-Ross will share her vision and Jill Dyché will offer a perspective on industry best practices, including ensuring that business intelligence takes a portfolio-driven approach and that data governance is deliberately designed. Avstreih-Ross will then offer her perspective of why these and other strategic approaches were right for RBS Citizens, and how the bank collaborates with its data-driven parent company to make sure that information supports operations and innovation.
Back to TopEnterprise Data Management That Fits
Speakers: Rich Murnane, Director, Enterprise Data Operation, iJET; Raj Salvaji, Director of IT, MGM Mirage; Steve Schutter, Managing Partner, Enterprise Data Management Center of Excellence, Teradata; Jill Dyché, Vice President, SAS (moderator)
Room: Milano I
Organizations struggle daily with the challenges of efficiently managing their large volumes of data in a timely, cost-effective manner. Hidden insights in this information can increase competitive advantage, but strong decision making depends on quality data. And an accurate, single view of their customers depends on the seamless integration of all data sources. The experts on this panel were able to make full use of all incoming information by implementing comprehensive data management systems that incorporated data quality, data integration and enterprise data access. Join Rich Murnane, Raj Salvaji and Steve Schutter as they discuss the importance of choosing the appropriate technology when building a data management system and ensuring the data governance processes in place are empowering your team.
Back to TopFind Your Creative Customer Analysis
Speakers: Joe Megibow, Vice President and General Manager, Expedia
Room: Milano V
Driving business results with innovative uses of analytics is Expedia’s specialty. Join Joe Megibow to hear how SAS inspired creative analysis that improved the overall experience for customers while on Expedia’s site, increased customer lifetime value and inspired marketing plans that created more profitable marketing touches. Expedia encourages new ideas and places a very high premium on innovation. This encouragement led an employee to suggest adopting a statistical model that is used primarily in the pharmaceutical industry to cut through the clutter of customer touch point data and positively attribute the origin of customer transactions. By creatively applying analytics in new ways, Expedia created a wildly successful solution to a customer experience challenge.
Back to TopFraud, Improper Payments and Compliance
Speakers: Mike Stapleton, Senior Vice President, Claim Administration, CNA; Manuel Moreno, PhD, Research Director, Los Angeles County; Ted Doyle, Vice President, OptumInsight; Stu Bradley, Senior Director, Security Intelligence Solutions, SAS (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan IV
The continued rise of global, cross-channel organized crime and cybercrime in financial services firms, government agencies and other sectors feeds the need for analytics at the foundation of all fraud and compliance matters. Given the difficult economic times, organizations have an opportunity to quickly improve the bottom line and ensure fair and equitable business practices by addressing the issue with a more holistic approach.
Learn how our distinguished panelists are using analytics to look at their organizations’ enterprise data assets more holistically to become more proactive in identification of fraud risks and drive efficiency in their operations.
Back to TopThe Hard Soft Stuff: People and Organizational Drivers of Advanced Analytical Success
Speakers: Greg Szwartz, Director of Advanced Analytics and Modeling in Life Sciences and Health Care, Deloitte
Room: Milano I
Advanced analytics has two distinct human capital issues: bringing the right talent into the right analytics organization, and supporting business leaders as they interpret and make decisions based on analytical insight. Complex business issues often require a portfolio of analyses on various data sets to generate insight for a tough decision. The portfolio of analyses may include statistical, simulation, optimization and other models. The key to success is often putting the right resources in place to construct the right models, and then supporting the non-analytics professional in understanding what to do with insights. There are opportunities related to both human capital issues: solving the right problem with the right people, and successfully engaging the business with results.
Learn how Deloitte views advanced analytics and human relation capital issues and opportunities as Szwartz addresses these key questions:
- What are "big data," "moneyball" and "analytics" exactly?
- How do you organize an analytics department to meet the needs of the business?
- What are typical failures when adopting analytics and competing on insight?
- What success have we seen and measured with clients? What is the case for broader action?
Harnessing Customer Insights Using Big Data
Speakers: Jill Dyche, Vice President, SAS; John Carter, Senior Vice President of Insight Loyalty, Charles Schwab; Sanjay Sidhwani, Vice President of Analytics for Retail Finance, GE Capital; Lori Bieda, Executive Lead for Customer Intelligence, SAS (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan III
The rise of the empowered customer and big data is creating new challenges for marketing professionals. Customers are hyperconnected, well-informed and digitally savvy, and they interact with brands and other consumers through multiple channels. They demand superior customer experiences and can easily vent their frustrations if they don’t receive the experiences they expect and want. Marketers are grappling with the exponential growth, availability and use of data – both structured and unstructured – from paid, earned and owned media channels. The volume, variety, velocity and complexity of data are causing organizations to re-fit marketing strategies and approaches to take advantage of these forces.
In this session, experts will provide insights into these questions:
- What approaches and technologies have you used to better understand your customer through big data?
- How do you connect multiple data linkages to gain a complete view of the customers?
- How can businesses align structured and unstructured data to produce reliable insights for effective, timely marketing?
- Has your organization built the analytic capabilities needed to take advantage of big data? What obstacles did you meet along the way?
- Which functions have remained important in light of new technologies, and which have faded in importance?
- How have you balanced the creative nature of marketing with the data-driven technologies now available?
‘Intelligent’ Financial Crimes Intelligence Units
Speaker: Jim Candelmo, Executive Director and Bank Secrecy Act Officer, Ally Financial
Room: Neopolitan I
Technology finally permits the promise of financial crimes intelligence units to be realized. Now what? With ever-increasing global terrorist financing threats, increasing fines for doing business with sanctioned countries and the ever-present international money launderers, the stakes have never been higher. This presentation is focused on the effective convergence of corporate security, fraud and anti-money laundering units into a meaningful financial crimes intelligence unit. Protect your institution, know your customer and know your limitations.
Back to TopThe Joy and Pain of Mobile at ESPN
Speaker: Kim Weller, Director of Analytical Services, ESPN
Room: Milano V
True to its mission statement to "serve the fan," ESPN seeks to expand across every platform that fans embrace. And ESPN fans are going mobile in droves! While mobile is experiencing exceptional growth, instrumenting, measuring and analyzing mobile products pose unique challenges. Kim Weller will discuss the pitfalls, triumphs and latest developments in mobile measurement, as well as current trends ESPN is seeing in the mobile space.
Back to TopMaintaining Profitability in a Dynamic Pricing Environment
Speaker: Kevin Stydinger, Vice President of Fuel Retail Sales, The Pantry (Kangaroo Express)
Room: Neopolitan II
Volatile commodity markets, irrational competitor behavior and internal pricing inefficiencies can significantly reduce profits if left unchecked for even short periods of time. Pricing in such a dynamic environment can be challenging, but with the right strategy, the right data and the right analytics, you can maintain – or even increase – your company’s profitability.
This session will identify the major challenges to maintaining profitability, what steps to take to overcome these challenges and how to align your pricing strategy for optimal results.
Specifically, you will learn:
- The three essentials critical to maintaining a competitive edge.
- How to uncover and eliminate pricing inefficiencies.
- What data and analytics you need to know.
Mastering Data Management
Speakers: Brett Caracciolo, Vice President of Data Governance, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi; Jacob Kuijpers, Senior Manager, Information Management and Analytics Technology Practice, Deloitte; Dr. Sandra Woodley, Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives, University of Texas System; Gavin Day, Senior Director, Information management, SAS (moderator)
Room: Milano I
The University of Texas System has become a national model for data transparency in higher education by implementing an information management solution that allowed open sharing between the system’s administration and 15 campuses. Deloitte is a recognized leader in providing measurable value by overseeing data management projects, while Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi has built a unique process for a 360-degree view of data quality, including regulatory reporting to the federal government. Hear from these organizations as Dr. Sandra Woodley from The University of Texas System, Jacob Kuijpers of Deloitte and Brett Caracciolo of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi discuss their personal experiences with successfully planning, creating and installing high-performance data management systems. These organizations offer employees access to standardized, accurate data, enabling strategic decision making and streamlining core operational processes.
Back to TopPowering Innovation at the Shelf
Speakers: Arnaud Joliff, Director of Supply Chain Integration, Nestlé; Dan Thorpe, Senior Director of Advanced Analytics in Insights and Innovation, Walmart; Eric Williams, former CIO of Catalina Marketing (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan II
The battle for the heart of shoppers – for both retailers and the suppliers – is won or lost at the shelf. With an ever-growing number of product choices and the inherent difficulty in managing store-specific assortments, direct store delivery offers a unique opportunity for a retailer to power growth and improve forecast accuracy. Attend this session to learn how you can lower inventory holding costs, plan profitable promotions, improve your balance sheet and offer a better shopper experience for the customer.
Back to TopProactively Prevent Merchant Attrition with Analytics
Speaker: Anand Narasimhan, Director of Decision Support and Analytics, Discover
Room: Neopolitan III
The issue of merchant attrition is a costly and significant issue to the credit card industry. The average merchant churn rate of 16 percent costs the industry $2.3 billion annually. Most organizations have a retention approach that is reactive, expensive, time-consuming and inefficient. Anand Narasimhan will share how Discover came up with an innovative approach using predictive analytics to improve retention rates. Retaining customers applies to many industries, not just financial services. In this session, you will hear about this program, which has been so successful that the company is in the process of applying for a patent.
Back to TopRide the Wave of Big Data Analytics
Speakers: Michael Howard, Vice President, Greenplum; Kerem Tomak, Vice President of Marketing Analytics, Macys.com; David Pope, Principle Solutions Architect, High-Performance Analytics Practice, SAS (moderator)
Room: Neopolitan III
The explosion of big data presents an increasing challenge to organizations, but also a significant opportunity to derive valuable insights. Organizations are not only tasked with proper management of massive data sets, but also with driving growth by solving more complex business issues.
Our panel of experts will share how organizations are riding the tidal wave of big data – including mobility platforms, social media, telematics, customer information, unstructured data and more – to refresh or create new business models, and most importantly, to create a real competitive advantage. The panel will discuss strategies for information management, analytics and a need for high-performance, scalable infrastructure to bring out the immense opportunities offered by big data.
Back to TopA Strategic Approach to Enterprise-wide Fraud Management
Speaker: Mark King, Executive Vice President, Fraud Strategy and Global Fraud Prevention, Bank of America
Room: Neopolitan I
The explosion of big data presents an increasing challenge to organizations, but also a significant opportunity to derive valuable insights. Organizations are not only tasked with proper management of massive data sets, but also with driving growth by solving more complex business issues.
Fraud continues to proliferate across financial institutions, through multiple lines of business and banking channels, including credit, debit and mobile banking. Bank of America is taking an enterprise-wide approach to fraud management with transformational technologies and predictive analytics. In this session you will hear how Bank of America has structured its large fraud organization for operational excellence. King will describe the "big data" being driven by massive amounts of transactions coming through the bank, the key elements that make up the bank’s fraud strategy, and the tools it is using to manage all of this quickly and efficiently. Join this session to learn how a more defined and strategic approach is essential for detection, prevention and deterrence of fraud.
Back to TopUnderstanding and Managing Health Care Risk
Speakers: Patrick Getzen, Vice President and Chief Actuary, Actuarial and Underwriting Services, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC)
Room: Neopolitan IV
In the past, health plans have used medical and pharmacy claims with member demographic information to understand financial risk and underwrite groups and members. With the changing health care landscape, health plans will need to consider business processes to manage and optimize portfolio performance by utilizing nontraditional methodologies. In this presentation, Patrick Getzen of BCBSNC will summarize how traditional models can be utilized with new information and modes to provide insights to health plans for strategically addressing product design, marketing initiatives and financial implications in the new health care marketplace.
Back to TopWorkshops
Thursday, October 11
Our concurrent workshop discussions provide a unique opportunity for you to share and gain new intellectual insight through the examination of current issues and trends in a lively, informal exchange. Choose the one that best meets your business needs.
Analytics: How to Apply Analytics
Milano V
1:15-2:30 p.m.
This workshop will explain the true value and need for analytics at your organization. Attendees will learn how to appropriately embed and implement analytics to gain maximum value. The workshop will be supplemented with case studies to understand how analytics plays out in real business situations. Attendees will learn how to:
- Address different business problems with the appropriate analytics solution.
- Identify and avoid the key challenges of implementing analytics.
- Explain the value of analytics from the back office to the executive level.
- Take the steps to maximize profits through analytics.
Who should attend: This seminar is geared toward management and executive-level leaders who want to know more about how data can drive decision making and understand the impact of analytics on their business.
Presenters: Tom Davenport, co-author of Competing on Analytics and Analytics at Work, and Research Director of the International Institute for Analytics; Kathy Lange, Senior Director, SAS Americas Business Analytics Practice; Deb Orton, Senior Director, Marketing, SAS (moderator)
Back to TopCustomer Intelligence: How to Combine the Power of Marketing and Analytics to Deliver Exceptional Customer Experiences
Neopolitan I
1:15-2:30 p.m.
Organizations around the world are striving to gain a competitive edge through not only developing superior customer intelligence, but delivering exceptional client experiences. Yet putting that into practice can often be tough.
In this session, you’ll be taken through a proven marketing and analytics evolution road map showing the discrete steps you can take to progress your organization to more profitable, client-centric business decisions. Tapping into SAS’ experience working with thousands of marketing and analytics executives around the globe and across industries, you’ll hear how to evolve your business, and how others have actually done it. From integration of online and offline experiences, to tapping into the power of social and digital media, to the power of real time, come learn about practical examples of how to drive your business forward.
Presenter: Lori Bieda, Executive Lead for Customer Intelligence, SAS
Back to TopFraud: How to Execute an Enterprise Approach to Fraud
Neopolitan III
1:15-2:30 p.m.
This workshop will educate attendees on the key aspects of developing a road map for enterprise fraud. The discussion will extend across the spectrum of organization, process and technology to provide a reference for enterprise capability. Case studies will be used to help participants understand how enterprise fraud objectives are being met in real business situations.
The session will discuss:
- Prioritizing key enterprise challenges.
- Key metrics and driving ROI.
- Operational and organizational change.
- High-level functional architecture considerations.
- Challenges and overcoming key roadblocks.
Who should attend: Management and executive-level leaders who want to know more about establishing programs for addressing fraud and financial crimes across an enterprise.
Presenter: Stu Bradley, Senior Director, Security Intelligence Solutions, SAS
Back to TopInformation Management: Launching Data Governance in the Right Way
Neopolitan II
1:15-2:30 p.m.
"If I see one more data governance definition slide, I’m going to flee the boardroom!"
That’s a direct quote from an executive - and maybe one of your colleagues. Today, data governance is on the radar of almost everyone, but just because they know what it is doesn’t mean they know where to start.
In this session, noted consultant and author Jill Dyché presents an execution framework for data governance delivery. She’ll discuss an approach for not only designing your data governance program, but also rolling it out according to your company’s incumbent capabilities and culture. Dyché will discuss common mistakes companies make when attempting to start their data governance initiatives, as well as a proven interaction system to ensure stakeholder engagement. Walking through a step-by-step delivery approach, she’ll show how to deploy a sustained data governance strategy that transcends the definitions and buzzwords du jour while positioning information as worthy of its own investment, promising large-scale payback.
Presenter: Jill Dyché, Vice President, Thought Leadership, SAS
Back to TopCaesars Palace
Las Vegas
Questions?
1-866-556-4733
Email Us
Presented By
Media Partners
