Major Symposium on Business Analytics Coming to UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A major symposium scheduled for Feb. 3-4 at the Bryant Conference Center on The University of Alabama campus will underscore the expertise that exists at the Culverhouse College of Commerce in the burgeoning area of business analytics.

“The corporations that will be represented at this symposium are the most important players in the world in business analytics,” said Dr. J. Michael Hardin, senior dean and associate dean of research at the UA business school.

The University of Alabama’s Institute of Business Intelligence is coordinating the event.

“Business analytics is a key component for every business in the world, from the smallest to the largest, and today’s highly sophisticated software packages can analyze organization-wide operations from top to bottom,” Hardin said. “Faculty members at the Culverhouse College of Commerce are keenly aware of the importance business analytics will play in the future, and this upcoming symposium will be an excellent forum for demonstrating that.”

Hardin said business analytics includes data mining and other analytic practices to make extensive use of data, statistics and modeling to help business people better understand past events and predict future events more accurately.

“Analytics always has played a major role in business, but today’s technology allow us to analyze larger and more diverse data sets a lot faster,” Hardin said.

The underlying value of business analytics is that it allows the business to evaluate its operations from the top down, Hardin said, from sales to marketing to product development to customer service.

“Customers are crucial to any business, and any business can derive huge benefits from knowing its customers and how they are likely to behave,” Hardin said. “This is particularly applicable to businesses such as banks, insurance companies, consulting firms and big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart.”

Hardin said business analytics differs from business intelligence in that business intelligence asks “what happened, while business analytics asks why did it happen? Business analytics involves the repeated, methodical examination of data in order to arrive at a data-driven decision.”

Symposium topics will range from applications of predictive models and other business analytic methods to corporate/academic partnerships and curriculum issues. Participants will include practitioners, faculty and students with interests in business analytics.

Corporate attendees are welcome to arrange interviews with students pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees in applied statistics or economics, as well as MBA students, all with a concentration in business analytics. An exhibit area will be available for displaying information of interest for symposium participants.

Scheduled presenters are:

Bill Kahn, vice president business analytics, Travelers Insurance; Lan Guan, senior manager, Management Consulting CRM, Accenture; Dan Thorpe, senior director of analytics, Sam’s Club; Kevin Busby, senior director statistical analyst, Capital One; Sundar Dorai-Raj, senior quantitative analyst, Google; Colleen McCue, manager, law enforcement program, GeoEye Analytics; Gene Grabowski Jr., manager-operations analytics, Ford Motor Credit Co.; J. Michael Hardin, associate dean for research, Culverhouse College of Commerce, The University of Alabama.

For additional information visit http://cba.ua.edu/basymposium, e-mail Dr. Denise McManus at  dmcmanus@cba.ua.edu,  or phone the department of information systems, statistics, and operations management at 205/348-6085.