Sure, the economy is in the tank, foreclosures and bankruptcies are cropping up like weeds and the unemployed can’t find a job, but it’s apparently a great time to be in the analytics business. Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services recently released the results of a survey that found that “analytics deployment is now nearly pervasive in enterprises around the globe.” Nearly 97 percent of survey respondents said their organizations have adopted business analytics, up from 90 percent in 2009.
A few years ago, the New York Times ran a graphic titled “The Emotional Roller Coaster.” It was adapted from a book by building contractor David Lupberger, “Managing the Emotional Homeowner,” but the graphic was so relevant for the installation of enterprise analytics software that I clipped a copy and kept it with my personal items. Actually, I made copies for senior management, members of software development and the analytics team at the company where I worked.
Through a series of unlikely events, my family and I find ourselves vacationing in a tiny village in the north of Spain. Halfway through our stay, I have not quite figured out the hours at the Teleclub, the bar/kids’ playground/social hub of San Martin de Elines, Cantabria. Other than that, I’ve fallen into the local routine with an alarming ease. The result is a circadian cycle like none that I’ve ever experienced before, with a long break for lunch (and sometimes a siesta) in the afternoon, dinner well after 10 p.m. most nights and no fixed bedtime, even for the kids. And whenever I’m tempted to shake my head and wonder at how different this village’s culture is from my own – in the midst of the neighbor’s paella feast that we are spontaneously invited to join or at 3 a.m. in a rural field filled with lights, music, cocktails and dancing during one of the local fiesta that go all night long – I calmly try to remind myself that, “Hey, this is just the way they do it here…”
As the appreciation for analytics spreads, more and more decision-makers confront an urgent question: How do they recognize whether analytical work is done correctly? The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), among other professional societies, is moving toward a certification program, in part in response to these decision-makers’ needs. Certification, however, is all too often implemented with a heavy emphasis on technical skills because that is what is easy to measure. Even if “soft” skills are included, the focus is still on capabilities, not on actual accomplishment in specific situations. Therefore, certification is unlikely to meet the client’s need to assess the quality of the O.R. products or approaches. Another activity is closer to the point: training the clients of analytics to assess analytical products and performance.
The Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) has been the premier international forum for disseminating recent advances in the field of system simulation for more than 40 years. The longest-running conference devoted to simulation as a discipline, this year’s WSC will be held Dec. 11-14 at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix, Ariz. The resort is family friendly, with amenities including high-speed Internet access, three on-site restaurants, lobby grill and lounge, a full-service spa and salon and golf course. All rooms are living room/bedroom suites with a balcony.
In the mid-1980s, La Quinta Motor Inns was experiencing increased competition from hotel chains. Competitors were seeking to enter La Quinta’s market niche serving frequent business travelers. Among the competitive factors deemed most important by La Quinta’s management was the location of its hotels. The question was especially important as La Quinta was expecting to enter a period of rapid expansion. In 1987, La Quinta operated 151 mature inns. In 2011, the company operated or provided franchise services to more than 800 hotels in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Like most Americans and many others around the world, I anxiously watched the debt ceiling negotiations this summer with an ever-increasing sense of concern. Although assigning blame and quoting politicians out of context made for some very entertaining blog and television, we can safely assume – with the stakes this high and the professional staffs of both parties hard at work – that the reason for the impasse was not simply “madness.” Although the stakes were extremely high, we can think of the politicians as having played a “game” that I will call “Budget Chicken” [1].
Winning at board games is often determined by identifying and controlling the most valuable locations on the board. The game board in Figure 1 represents a scaled-down version of the popular board game Monopoly.
