Data & Analytics Virtual Summit 2021

2020 Previous Speakers

All Times EST

Virtual Welcome / Opening Remarks

Opening Keynote Presentation

Creating a Data-Driven Mindset: Embracing Data & Analytics as the Basis for All Business Decisions

Data-driven organizations are committed to gathering data concerning all aspects of the business. By enabling employees at every level to use the right data at the right time, data can foster conclusive decision-making and becomes part of the companies’ competitive advantage. Data has become a basic enterprise asset that enables better, faster, cheaper business processes, and truly data-driven organizations are committed to gathering data concerning all aspects of the business. By enabling employees at every level to use the right data at the right time, data can foster conclusive decision-making and becomes part of the companies’ competitive advantage. However, many organizations don’t have a solid, company-wide data strategy in place and continue to keep information siloed.

Join us in this informative session as we discuss best practices for becoming truly data-driven, such as:

• Putting data and analysis front and center in everyday business processes in order to build meaningful collaborations throughout the organization
• Making the commitment to treat data as a strategic asset and ensure that analytics projects tie back to critical business efforts
• Empowering users with the structure, governance, and facilitation of training that’s needed to solve business problemswith data and analytics
• Making data skills a top priority in recruiting, developing, and retaining organizational talent

Keynote Presentation

Prioritizing Data Literacy: Getting from Data to Outcomes

As data continues to grow in importance for organizations across industries, data literacy has become an increasingly crucial skill, even for those who are not data analysts, data engineers, or data scientists. By thinking through the full classification of decision types, organizations can prioritize their data-driven decision-making and strike the appropriate balance of human judgment and computing power for each type of decision. When working to develop true proficiency in data interpretation and communication, it’s critical to create and maintain a certain mindset for approaching data and data-related problems to facilitate the development of data literacy.

In this engaging session we will discuss some strategies for developing and enhancing a data-driven mindset, such as:

• Developing an awareness of what measures are included in the data, any filters that are applied, and the mechanisms used to actually collect the data – in order to truly understand what questions can, and cannot, be addressed by the data
• Forming a core understanding of what the data is actually used for – to cut down on the amount of data you will eventually need to analyze, and make it easier to provide insights to your stakeholders
• Identifying the multitude of decisions that are made across the organization, and prioritizing the data enhancement opportunities to determine who should lead decision-making going forward
• Making data literacy a top-down organizational imperative in order to: increase data-driven maturity, reduce costs, and minimize turnaround time – without impacting the probability of making the right decisions
• Utilizing data warehouses, lakes and pipelines to ensure that the data is relevant, reliable, repeatable and recognized as coming from an authoritative source

Panel Discussion

The Talent Landscape: Growing Data and Analytics Teams in the Organization

While many companies are hiring data scientists and other types of analytical and artificial intelligence talent, there is little consensus within and across companies about the qualifications for such roles. Companies need to devote considerable attention to classifying and certifying the different types of data and analytics jobs that they have and need. With data becoming a key element of all organizational decision-making, identifying the right talent to lead data and analytics initiatives is critical.

Join this highly interactive panel as we discuss strategies for acquiring and retaining top data and analytics talent, such as:

• Expanding the talent pool by working with universities directly on data and analytics educational programs
• Building and nurturing communities within the organization to effectively develop employees for the data teams
• Making internal investments directed at assessing, hiring, and motivating the company’s data and analytics talent
• Building community and knowledge-sharing approaches among the data and analytics professionals
• Creating job-mapping initiatives that will lead to a clearer vision for how individuals can move around, upskill, and grow their career paths

Lunch & Learn

Keynote Presentation

Implementing Predictive Analytics to Forecast Revenue and Improve Marketing Campaigns

For the past few decades, business intelligence tools have been essential for companies wanting to stay ahead of the competition. The natural evolution of business intelligence, predictive analytics provides a deeper understanding of future trends, relying on historical data and statistical models. As with AI, however, it is only as good as the input and the reasoning behind the algorithm used.

In this engaging session we will discuss some of the steps necessary to properly execute the implementation of Predictive Analytics, such as:

• Setting out expected outcomes and clear deliverables
• Defining data collection and analysis processes
• Democratizing modeling and making it available to business analysts and data scientists
• Interpreting and integrating data into daily routines
• Monitoring the data periodically to confirm its significance

Keynote Presentation

Implementing an Agile Approach to Data Unification

Data unification is an incredibly complex process and one of the biggest challenges many large organizations face today. Trying to combine all of the data across your organization into one master source is incredibly difficult to achieve at scale, particularly when hundreds of thousands of datasets are involved. Because of this data mastering crisis, there is an immediate need for organizations that provide agile and curated datasets.

In this interactive workshop we will discuss some of the principles for scalable data unification, such as:

• Ingesting data and performing data cleaning
• Performing schema integration and entity consolidation
• Performing classification and other complex analytics
• Exporting unified data to one or more downstream systems

Keynote Presentation

Data & Analytics as the Centerpiece of Organizational Strategy

Leading organizations – regardless of industry – are utilizing data and analytics as competitive weapons and modernization catalysts. Information as an asset is critical moving forward, and must become a competitive differentiator for leading organizations as they focus on digital transformation. However, many companies continue to struggle under the weight of traditional operating models that fail to see data and analytics as a primary organizational asset, and instead discount the true potential.

Join us in this informative session as we discuss best practices for making data and analytics the centerpiece of enterprise strategy, by:

• Collecting examples of the internal and external economic benefits from data and analytics that your organization has generated
• Committing to the information management and advanced analytics skills and technology investments that are necessary to realize that potential of data and analytics
• Measuring and communicating the value of the organization’s information assets to help shift the culture into believing and behaving as if information is an actual asset
• Building advanced analytics competencies beyond traditional business intelligence and embedding them throughout the business

Keynote Presentation

Utilizing Data Storytelling to Influence Decisions and Drive Change

In today’s economy, and with all of the uncertainly as to the future of business, being able to communicate effectively with data is no longer seen as simply a luxury – it’s a critical business element. There are two important factors to consider when trying to engage your organizational audience: how to transform your data into a visual communication tool; and, developing ways to captivate your audience with an effective narrative in order to tell the story with data. In addition, utilizing data storytelling creates a way for anybody in the organization – regardless of level or skill set – to understand and use data in their jobs on a daily basis.

Join us in this engaging session as we discuss best practices for implementing and utilizing data storytelling, such as:

• Developing a true understanding of your audience and choosing the best visualization techniques in order to give maximum information with the least amount of effort
• Understanding what your company truly wants to communicate, and what actions you’re looking to drive
• Determining which communication method will be most effective for your intended audience(s) – bar chart, animation, color schemes, screen sharing, etc.
• Reducing the cognitive load and using visuals that will be familiar to the audience
• Aligning the story with the needs and knowledge level of the audience

Panel Discussion

Reshaping the Workforce Composition to Be Certain that Your Organization Experiences a Successful Data Transformation

It’s critical to create an organization with updated data and analytics roles that are fit for the future, as the expanding importance of data and analytics generates strategic challenges for company leadership. In the business of the future, there are new responsibilities and requirements for data and analytic leadership, and it’s necessary to develop skillsets in new areas such as AI and machine learning. In addition to leadership direction, it’s important to develop new roles that are effective in the process of transforming your data and analytics functions.

In this informative session, we’ll discuss the key roles to focus on for developing your data and analytics workforce of the future, such as:

• Data-driven developers that will aid the organization in effective ways to manage data and analytics assets
• Data scientists and engineers that can investigate and scrutinize data variations in order to detect errors and anomalies in your data sets
• Data and analytics architects that can improve the organizational design of information assignments that are shared throughout the company
• IT product managers to help executive and IT leadership agree on how to effectively utilize data and analytics to generate revenue and drive business

End of Summit