Convince Your Boss: How to Make the Case to Your Employer

Participating in the 2027 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference will give you a broader perspective on how analytics, AI, and data-driven decision-making can deliver meaningful business results. You’ll learn from experienced practitioners, strengthen your analytics skills, and gain practical insights you can bring back to your organization.

Analytics+ will help you grow professionally while making you more valuable to your employer. You’ll develop your technical and strategic skills, learn from real-world applications across a range of industries, and build a more integrated understanding of the methods, technologies, and processes that turn data into better decisions. This broader perspective can help you identify new opportunities, ask better questions, and connect analytics initiatives to the outcomes that matter most to your organization.

So, what does your employer have to gain by funding your attendance at the 2027 Analytics+ Conference? Below are some arguments you can use, either as-is or adapted for specific analytics, data, AI, or decision-making initiatives currently underway or being considered by your organization.

Strengthen Your Competitive Edge Through Data

Data-driven decision-making is becoming increasingly important to organizational success. Whether it’s improving supply chain performance, understanding customers, optimizing operations, managing risk, or identifying new opportunities, organizations that use data effectively can gain a significant competitive advantage. Analytics+ will give you the opportunity to learn from accomplished experts who are using analytics, AI, and decision science to solve real-world problems and deliver measurable results.

Avoid Wasting Time and Money

Many data and analytics initiatives fail to deliver their expected value—not necessarily because of a lack of technology, but because organizations are solving the wrong problem, using the wrong approach, or failing to connect analytical work to business decisions. Analytics+ will expose you to experienced practitioners, emerging technologies, and proven approaches to problem formulation, analytics processes, data foundations, and implementation. You’ll be better equipped to help your organization focus its time, money, and talent on the problems that matter most.

Increase the Return on Analytics Investments

The cost of attending Analytics+ is small compared with the potential value of improving an analytics initiative—or avoiding a costly mistake. The conference will help you connect technical methods with business objectives, evaluate potential approaches, and recognize opportunities to create greater impact from existing data and analytics capabilities. You’ll return with ideas and perspectives that can help your organization get more value from its investments in data, technology, and people.

Turn Artificial Intelligence into Business Value

Artificial intelligence presents enormous opportunities, but realizing those opportunities requires more than adopting the latest tools. Organizations need to understand where AI can genuinely improve decisions and outcomes, how to evaluate its performance and risks, and how to integrate it responsibly into real-world processes. Analytics+ will give you practical perspectives on applying AI and machine learning, measuring their impact, and managing the risks that come with rapidly evolving technologies.

Bring Back Ideas That Can Be Put into Practice

Analytics+ focuses on applied analytics and real-world results. You’ll hear how organizations are using analytics, operations research, and AI to address complex challenges and deliver measurable impact. The experience can help you identify techniques, approaches, and ideas that can be adapted to your organization’s own challenges—and share those insights with colleagues after the conference.

Build the Skills Your Organization Needs Next

The analytics field continues to evolve rapidly, creating new demands for technical expertise, strategic thinking, communication, and leadership. Analytics+ brings together professionals working across analytics, data science, AI, decision science, and related disciplines. Attending will help you stay current with the field, expand your professional network, and develop the broader perspective needed to help your organization navigate an increasingly data-driven future.