“They were required to have a fairly sophisticated knowledge of programming – and that’s what turned off the students. “Students used to struggle with things like regressions and decision trees because there were no really good, accessible tools available,” Gopal says. Gopal says that while many business students understand the value of data and the importance of business analytics, they have difficulties in its actual execution. JMP was used in cluster analysis, and SAS for principal components analysis, of macro-economic variables to forecast shop visits for GE Aviation engines. SAS was used extensively to run statistical analysis on turbine sensor data. JMP was used to run principal components analysis to determine historical and forecasted macro factors influencing account delinquencies. SAS was used to identify and match shipping lanes from trailer sensor data. JMP was used to determine attribute preferences and price sensitivities from a survey of radiologists. JMP was used to run analyses on results from a concept test survey of neurologists and ICU and emergency room directors. Most of the projects in edgelab are executed using SAS tools, now including JMP.”Īmong projects conducted at edgelab in 2009 were: “And then what really helped was our partnership with SAS. “The business analytics component really gained a lot of traction in our edgelab,” Gopal says. Edgelab strives to “challenge assumptions and infuse fresh ideas.” One place they started was at the GE UConn edgelab, first-rate research facilities where UConn business students collaborate with faculty and GE managers to generate team-based, innovative solutions to some of the complex business challenges GE faces. In response, the university’s School of Business, which takes seriously its mission to deliver a pipeline of talented and energized professionals, developed a structured set of business analytics offerings. “We’ve observed that business analytics is always at the top of the list of skills they want from new hires.” Attacking real-world challenges We invite very high-level folks – CIOs, senior VPs, IT directors – to talk to our students about careers in information technology and the skills they need to succeed in those careers. “At the same time,” says Gopal, “there’s been more and more interest from recruiters who hire our students in having these students graduate with a broad range of business analytics skills. Gopal says that through its association with GE, the school has been receiving increasingly more requests for analytics assistance from different GE businesses. The goal is to transform data into actionable business intelligence.” In addition, with the emergence of e-business and e-supply chains, today’s business world has moved into a data rich environment. We realized a few years ago that a lot of business issues are really buried deep in the data, and by harnessing that data we can come up with really innovative solutions to business problems. “But over time, business needs have changed. “We used to do fairly straightforward projects like Web site analysis and studies of IT investments and infrastructure. “We’ve been offering both undergraduate and graduate analytics classes for a number of years,” Gopal says.
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