SAS Ireland Blog

Bringing you the latest hot topics from SAS Ireland

Join in the discussion - we will bring you our take on the latest in the Business Analytics sector.

Special Feature

business life meets……Mikael Hagstrom

Mikael Hagstrom is executive vice president of leading business analytics company SAS. A quietly reasoned evangelist for the benefits of data analysis, he is convinced that it can transform our world for the better...

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Can using Data Discovery aid in the prediction of Earthquakes and Volcanoes?

The art and science of prediction for earthquakes and volcanoes has come a long way from the ancient times of celestial harbingers of doom to the modern-day scientific discipline of high powered numerical algorithm number crunching. But we still haven’t laid down a precise method for accurate foresight.

Read Niall's blog

 

 

A Tale of Two Universities

In 2012, UCD climbed three places in the QS world university rankings, fell 28 places in the THE rankings, while not moving at all in the ARWU rankings. You probably would avoid a restaurant with such confused reviews, so how could you be expected to make one of your biggest life decisions with such poor information?

Read Ciarán's blog

 

 


SAS Ireland MOTEAM #PowerToGrow

We love to support great causes at SAS Ireland. It turns out that men's health was right under our nose. Last year, our employees raised almost €1000 and the idea has really grown on us.Throughout Movember, we'll be bringing the power of SAS Analytics to the world of facial hair.

Donate to our team!

 

 


Knowledge Box and Model Factories – the future of Irish high tech manufacturing

With the cost of advanced tech production line errors often reaching tens of millions of euro, local firms must also be able to offer the most cutting-edge safeguards against unexpected manufacturing flaws.

Read Paul's blog

 

 


Learning from the past: how technology can help avoid the Housing Bubble 2.0

A recent article in the Irish Times about the Swedish housing market gave me an eerie sense of déjà vu. With soaring house prices and increasing debt, some Swedish economists and politicians are concerned about a Housing Bubble 2.0 – while others argue “the risks are manageable”. Sound familiar?

Read Dave's blog

 

 


The case for an enterprise-wide approach to analytics in retail banks

There is increasing concern that analytical talent tends to be a small number of specialised individuals – often in somewhat isolated functions – who leave a big knowledge gap if and when they move on to pastures new. With many banks experiencing a pay freeze, and the demand for big data analytics skills set to create 60,000 new jobs in Ireland by 2017, it’s a valid concern.

Read John's blog

 

 


Complementary medicine: tackling fraud could boost Ireland’s healthcare system

It’s official: the Irish healthcare system is ailing. According to new healthcare statistics from the OECD, sharp cutbacks mean that Ireland’s total spending now accounts for just 8.9% of GDP, lower than the OECD average of 9.3%. That puts us significantly behind the US, France, Germany and the Netherlands – spending less even than austerity-stricken Spain and Greece.

Read Emmet's blog

 

 


Why banks are not getting the most value from their hardest working staff member

A bank’s website is its hardest working, most cost-effective and best-informed member of staff. Tell me, who else meets and greets a million customers a week, works 24/7, and can unobtrusively ask more questions than a call centre or branch ever could? All without looking for holidays! Yet it is woefully underused – usually just seen as a functional channel for everyday transactions and one-size-fits-all marketing.

Read Martin's blog

 

 


Sanity check: have you got what it takes to keep your most valuable customers?

It’s often said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That’s certainly true when it comes to customer retention. Many companies continue to bombard existing customers with new customer offers – and are then surprised when they defect to the competition.

Read Stephen's blog

 

 


Why the decline of outbound marketing is A Good Thing for the Analytical Marketer

Many marketers see the constant headlines about the uses and abuses of our data as A Bad Thing. Marketers cry: “If customers won’t share their data, how will we run outbound campaigns and talk to them when we need to? We’ll have to wait for them to contact us! We’re doomed.” But there’s a renegade band – the Analytical Marketers – who disagree. We actually see the rise of inbound marketing as A Good Thing.

Read Alan's blog

 

 


Tomorrow’s breakthroughs today: more effective cohort recruitment is already here

The future sounds bright but there’s still the ‘small’ matter of rigorous clinical trials standing between the vision and the reality. And, as every CRO and pharma company knows, the key challenge is finding the patients and methodologies to run reliable, effective and cost-efficient trials.

Read Paul's blog

 

 


Overcome big data dread: how visual analytics makes your data work for you

Have you ever played buzzword bingo? You make a list of overused yet little-understood words and tick them off over the course of a meeting. You’ll know the kind of thing: leverage, blue-sky thinking, bandwidth…I could go on. There’s one I’d like to add to the list: big data.

Read John's blog

 

 


Ireland the “goodest” country in the world? 5 common sense rules for data analysis

So Ireland has picked up another glowing accolade for the national mantelpiece, this time for our positive contribution to humanity and the planet. That’s right, we’re the “goodest country in the world”. It’s a catchy headline but, I have to ask, what does it mean?

Read Martin's blog

 

 


Change the record: how to use stats and analysis to shift organisational debate

The key is to find one metric that is valuable to, or has consequences for, everyone. And then use it to change the narrative. This can be done using simple analysis; you find the metric that correlates to all the others and use that as your new barometer. By continuing to report on this barometer, and putting it into context, it is easier than you might think to get buy-in and a positive reaction from employees.

Read Alex's blog

 

 


Don’t fall at the last hurdle: drugs are only as strong as your clinical trial data

The changing landscape is exciting news for the pharma industry. But, as clinical trial data is the pulse of any life sciences company, it’s imperative they give serious thought to how to integrate their huge data repositories, standardise, and ensure data quality.

Read Paul's blog

 

 


Power to the people: Irish switchers are good news for analytical marketers

So it seems we Irish have gone from grudging acceptance of bad service…to an empowered people of hyperactive ‘switchers’. A survey from Accenture shows that 72% of Irish consumers have actively moved their spending away from companies that do not deliver: up 11% on last year and way higher than the global average of 54%.

Read Alan's blog

 

 


How Irish organisations can work together to beat sector-agnostic fraud

Modern fraudsters don’t specialise in banking, insurance, tax or welfare crime; they simply take the path of least resistance to get their hands on the cash, regardless of industry or channel. So it’s essential for private and public sectors to think in the same way, and work together to beat the would-be criminals.

Read Martin's blog

 

 


Action! Why big data analytics projects fail

Most people would agree that technology in itself is just a tool; it’s what you do with it that counts. So you’d be amazed by how many companies invest in data analytics ‘solutions’ without first asking themselves what business problems they want to solve, or which actions they want to take.

Read Martin's blog

 

 


From Ironman to customer journeys, we’ve all got a big data problem

Like many others in Ireland, I’ve been consumed by the get fit/keep fit craze. Many a weekend you’ll find me tackling half marathons, triathlons or adventure races up and down the country. But my competitive nature is leaving me with a problem: a big data problem

Read Stephen's blog

 

 


Should we use data analytics to predict and shape our children’s future?

With science and technology changing the job market at a staggering pace, there’s a good chance that in 10 years they’ll be starting careers that don’t even exist yet. And, in a global economy, they won’t be just competing against their classmates, or the county, for jobs or university places. They’ll be up against candidates from all over the world.

Read Emmet's blog