Back to the basics with analytics

At SAS, our CEO Jim Goodnight has often reminded us that we are first and foremost an analytics company. It’s not that we need reminding, exactly. It’s just that the industry constantly evolves.

Customers find new and unique uses for our analytic software. Industry analysts create buzzwords to explain the way customers use analytics. Partners find emerging markets that can benefit from SAS. R&D develops entire platforms to support the use of analytics in the enterprise.

It’s inevitable. We get caught up in watching the trends, promoting the new uses of SAS and buzzing about the emerging markets.

Despite the constant excitement of an evolving industry, we are proud to remain – firmly – the world’s leading provider of analytics. To honor this position, we’ve dedicated a large part of this issue to some basic analytic concepts:

• What is analytics? See – at a glance – eight different types of analytics.
• What does it take to develop analytic workers? Read “The making of an analyst.”
• Why should you promote your use of analytics? To capture the imagination and respect of stakeholders, says Thornton May.
• How can you apply analytics to your Web marketing efforts?
• Who’s using analytics? Hallmark, Codan Insurance and Petrobras, to name
  a few.

I hope these articles answer some of the questions that you and your co-workers have about analytics. If they do, please bookmark your favorites and pass the magazine on to a friend. Help us spread the word about the core SAS capability: analytics.