Accounting & Financial Services
The accounting and financial services sector has been faced with great challenges in fraud, noncompliance, and ineffective controls. The industry previously used financial modeling and traditional auditing approaches to monitor company performance and make business decisions. Industry leaders talk about the new age of data in which organizations are making data-driven decisions using analytical modeling and decision science approaches to accompany traditional accounting and financial models.
Analytics Certification (Brought to you by CAP)
The Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®) certification is a trusted, independent verification of the critical technical expertise and related soft skills possessed by accomplished analytics and data science professionals and valued by analytics-oriented organizations. This track will feature sessions for all levels to explore the benefits of certification. Learn about the skills, characteristics, and capabilities hiring managers crave when seeking exceptional data science and analytics resources; hear from the academic and industry winners from the Master Modeler Competition, which required the application of CAP framework and domains for problem solving; review new CAP content, strategy, and growth at the CAP Summit, and learn from a panel discussion of the value of certification in data science.
Behavioral Analytics
Companies universally are interested in how to better attract, engage, and retain their customers. However, until the explosion in e-commerce and digital platforms, there were significant limitations in the kind of analysis that was possible. With modern tools we often have tens, hundreds (or more) data points related to a single customer journey as consumers navigate apps and websites. Given this wealth of data, Behavioral analytics is focused on understanding how to drive consumer behavior. In addition, there are novel applications in this field as part of the ongoing battle between privacy and personalization.
Cloud Data
The creation and explosive growth of the cloud data industry provides tremendous opportunities and challenges to organizations. Among the opportunities are the varied aspects of cloud data including: compute, storage, classic analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and optimization. On the challenges side of the equation, organizations in this space face intense competition from long standing cloud solution providers, newcomers to the field, and all the implementation and change management issues in data projects.
Cyber Analytics
The Cyber Analytics track features leaders and innovators from Industry and Government sharing their perspectives on applying advanced analytics (e.g., operations research, data engineering, data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning engineering) in the cyber domain. This track is intended to bring together practitioners, researchers, scientists, engineers, and leaders who are working to enable cyber decision making with analytics, sharing new tools, techniques and technologies.
Defense
The Defense track features leaders, practitioners and innovators from Industry and Government sharing their perspectives on researching, developing and applying science and technology for quantitative decision making in defense (military, homeland security, etc.) areas. Managing data as a strategic asset while highlighting the criticality of analytics (data, algorithms and models) to build and maintain information advantage to create decision dominance on the battlefield (land, air, sea, space, etc.), at the border, and across the digital domain.
Edelman Competition
Finalists will compete for the top prize in this “Super Bowl” of O.R. practice, showcasing analytics projects that had major impacts on their client organizations.
The Franz Edelman Award Competition attests to the contributions of operations research and analytics in both the profit and nonprofit sectors. Since its inception, cumulative benefits from Edelman finalist projects has topped the $363 billion mark. Edelman finalist teams have improved organizational efficiency, increased profits, brought better products to consumers, helped foster peace negotiations, and saved lives. The purpose of the Franz Edelman Competition is to bring forward, recognize, and reward outstanding examples of operations research, management science, and advanced analytics in practice in the world.
Government
Analytics are driving advancements across all government levels that affect nearly every part of our lives. From improving disaster recovery operations to enhancing access to healthcare, analytics drives innovation and enhances service delivery across the public sector. From our most pressing social issues, criminal justice, and immigration reform to ensuring national security, public sector analytics saves lives, reduces costs, and helps leaders make better decisions. Just as business leaders have used analytics to make smart business decisions, policymakers in government are increasingly turning to these same tools to analyze important policy issues. See how the latest analytics applications are addressing public policy issues.
INFORMS Prizes & Special Sessions
INFORMS grants several prestigious Institute-wide prizes and awards for meritorious achievement each year. This track will feature presentations for the Wagner Prize, INFORMS Prize, and the UPS George D. Smith Prize winner. Innovative Applications in Analytics Award (IAAA) finalists will also present. Special sessions may include presentations hosted by our Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®) Program and Women in OR/MS.
Industry & Academia Integration
Industry leaders and academic experts discuss the importance of a strong collaboration between the industry sector and academia in terms of advanced analytics. A goal of academia is to educate the workforce with multiple levels of expertise (from technicians to Ph.D.s) and the role of industry is to leverage the workforce (while providing continued on-the-job training) to generate value using analytics while ensuring its sustainability in the long-run. In this track, leaders and experts from both sides will share their experiences and provide their approaches to ensure successful collaborative experiences that achieve the objectives of both sides.
Life Science & Healthcare
The life science and healthcare sector has begun to see the first indications of disruptions powered by artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. How best to translate data into insights and effective decisions is a core differentiator for companies in this industry. The opportunity in the space is huge as volumes of data grow and Precision Medicine becomes a reality. This track will feature innovators and executives who will take a deep dive into the complexity of the field, and how analytics professionals are making a difference in this critical sector.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing industries are fundamental to our economic and societal development. As analytics tools get more accessible and easy to use, manufacturers have begun to embrace more of the opportunities of using data to drive success for their business. Blending IoT data with more traditional data sources has been a particularly new frontier of the industry. This track is focused on experts in manufacturing sharing their successes, tools, and ideas to transform the industry to be more efficient, cleaner, and visionary.
Marketing
Marketing has existed as a discipline and science for decades, but is still experiencing radical transformation as marketers apply advanced analytics and machine learning tools to improve their marketing tactics and strategy. In this track, you will discover practical, applied, highly structured best practices for using analytics to improve the marketing ecosystem. It is our objective that every session attendee will walk away with at least one “aha!” moment, at least one practical tool/solution/idea that they can take back to their job, and at least one concept that they want to learn more about.
Platform & SaaS
With the development of cloud technology, there have been a host of changes in how organizations do business. One of those areas is the explosion in organizations that operate as Platform or SaaS solutions. These organizations face many challenges from the need to stay relevant and at the cutting edge while maintaining their successful corporate identities. In this track, leaders will share how they navigate the challenges of this unique industry particularly focused on the difficulties of leveraging internal and external customer data and how it allows them to grow their business.
Retail
Retail is facing great challenges from customer behavior changes, labor shortages, and the technology revolution. The industry is using analytics not just to meet those challenges, but also to grow customer demand, improve efficiency, and expand their business. Classic analytics approaches including inventory management, workforce optimization, and vehicle routing are extremely valuable in overcoming those challenges. With enormous amounts of customer data and the support of innovative decision science and AI technologies, retailers are in a unique position to further enhance their competitive advantages. Industry leaders will discuss their first-hand experience in applying emerging technologies to uncover growth opportunities.
Revenue Management
The Revenue Management & Pricing track features analytics leaders from top companies in traditional and nontraditional industries such as travel, hospitality, transportation, entertainment, high tech, finance, media, and retail. This track promotes and disseminates the latest developments in pricing and revenue management and provides opportunities to engage with and learn from top industry experts. Discover how to use artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics, data science, and operations research to better understand and target your customers, improve your pricing practices and demand forecasts, and drive revenue, gross margin, and market share growth.
Supply Chain
Supply chain leaders discuss a rapidly transforming ecosystem shaped by a proliferation of data applications for management, logistics, and resiliency. The AI revolution is pushing rapid application of affiliated emerging concepts and technologies across supply chain and logistics. Decision support tools and machine learning technologies are disrupting business and driving new policies, products, services, and channels to increase revenue. During this track, industry leaders will share how they are delivering practical AI solutions to maximize efficiency and minimize business disruption.
Technology Tutorials
This conference will feature both Technology Tutorials from participating vendors. These 50-minute, theater-style sessions will provide educational information and case studies on relevant analytics concepts and vendor products and services.
Travel & Hospitality
The Travel and Hospitality industry is one of the largest in the world and those in the field rely on many analytics methodologies and applications to effectively increase profits and drive down costs. Large companies have been excelling in this field for decades, but smaller organizations have a lot to learn and opportunity to grow by developing more analytics tools. Speakers will discuss novel data-driven solutions to challenges in operations, revenue management, and IT.
