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SAS customers and optimization — JT on EDM

Next up in my SAS day was a panel on optimization. Bobby Hull of BGF Industries and Bill Nowicki of the Carolina Hurricanes were joined by Larry Mosiman of SAS on a panel hosted by Tammi Kay George. BGF is a leader in high-end composites and textiles. The Carolina Hurricanes, of course, are an NHL team. Optimization is, of course, the 8^th of the levels of analytics that Jim Davis was... Read moreNext up in my SAS day was a panel on optimization. Bobby Hull of BGF Industries and Bill Nowicki of the Carolina Hurricanes were joined by Larry Mosiman of SAS on a panel hosted by Tammi Kay George. BGF is a leader in high-end composites and textiles. The Carolina Hurricanes, of course, are an NHL team. Optimization is, of course, the 8^th of the levels of analytics that Jim Davis was discussing. Optimization is used in lots of ways and Larry gave a quick overview. Optimization is a about finding the best of all possible solutions. In the context of marketing or collections it is about taking limited resources (offers that cannot be made to everyone) and finding the optimal pattern (where optimal means most profitable, resulting in most retention or whatever). Larry walked through how various approaches to assigning campaigns to customers produce sub-optimal approach. Just allocating first-come-first-served is inefficient. An explicit, rules-based decision is better but does not manage the trade-offs across large numbers of customers. Optimization focused on the whole problem and maximizes across the customer portfolio. View page