Ask the Experts

Carel Badenhorst brings 10 years of knowledge and experience to key areas of business analytics implementation.

Badenhorst, Head of the Technology Practice for SAS Middle East and Africa, is responsible for all aspects of the SAS® Business Analytics Framework and helps enable enterprisewide business analytics for customer sites through best practices, intelligence implementations and value-adding processes, methodologies and technology.

Badenhorst has a passion for appropriate intelligence enablement. He is working to help learning and academic institutions in his region to produce an industry- and organization-ready work force trained to implement appropriate analytical enablement quickly, adding value to their employers from day one.

Badenhorst joined SAS in 1999. He has a law degree from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and a master’s degree specializing in business intelligence from Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom.

Areas of expertise include:

• Organizational readiness assessments.
• Data acquisition.
• Data quality and data warehousing processes.
• Online analytical processing (OLAP).
• Analytics for business.
• Intelligence dissemination processes.
• Continuity and sustainability of business intelligence in organizations through Business Intelligence Competency Centers.
• Value delivery management.

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Gaurav Verma is a dynamic, results-focused sales and marketing executive with proven leadership in driving high-velocity enterprise software organizations with significant revenue pipeline and a special emphasis on the financial services industry. Verma, who has nearly 10 years of analytics experience, drives SAS’ global market leadership for its flagship business analytics framework, business intelligence, content categorization products and solutions, and information management strategy.

Before joining SAS, Verma developed go-to-market strategies for the financial services industry for Cognos. Before Cognos, Verma developed and implemented global marketing, communications and solution strategies for Information Builders, a business intelligence and integration software technology provider. He has also worked as a Principal Analyst and Program Manager at Doculabs Inc., a technology consulting firm that lowers the business risk of technology decisions through client-specific recommendations, objective analysis and in-depth research. Verma also served as the lead analyst in Doculabs’ research study on the impact of technology on treasury management services at leading financial institutions and their corporate customers.

Areas of expertise include:

• Strategic planning and business process analysis.
• Sales enablement.
• Sales and sales management.
• Business development.
• Demand generation.
• Strategic alliances.
• Enterprise software marketing.
• Marketing performance management.
• Product/industry/field marketing.
• Brand strategy, marketing communications.
• Competitive analysis.

Enterprise software specializations:

• Business analytics.
• Business intelligence.
• Analytics.
• Performance management.
• Content categorization.
• Data management.
• Information management.

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James Foster is currently the Chief Technology Strategist at SAS Australia, where his key focus areas include architecture advisory and best practices. He has direct involvement in all major customer accounts across many industries. His knowledge extends beyond SAS technology to integration with corporate systems and infrastructure. Foster draws upon his practical experience in implementing a number of large-scale enterprise solutions.

Foster’s experience in the IT industry is broad, encompassing areas such as software testing, development and project implementation. Foster is currently responsible for thought leadership in creating and implementing technology road maps for SAS customers in both the sales and delivery cycles; he also leads a virtual team of architects in sales support and implementation capacities. He is responsible for communicating the SAS product strategy to existing and potential customers as well as understanding local technology trends and business imperatives.

Prior to SAS, Foster held a number of roles within the data warehousing and business intelligence areas, both in management and hands-on delivery roles in a number of industries such as financial services, telecommunications and government.

Areas of expertise:

• Software testing.
• Project implementation.
• Architecture advisory and best practices.
• Implementation of large-scale enterprise solutions.

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