SAS® Global Forum is the conference where SAS users get to see what SAS Institute has been working on, to learn the latest SAS application tricks, and to network with other data professionals.
Over 6,000 SAS users attended this year … it was biggest SASGF ever!
This year’s theme was Analytics in Action and it went right along with Zencos’ theme #nerdlife – ok, maybe not exactly hand-in-hand. We pride ourselves on knowing we have vast expertise and can help companies transform their processes in this data-driven world.
“If the problem is driven by data, we can solve it using some form of analytics,” said Dr. Oliver Schabenberger, SAS COO.
We agree.
Digital Transformation through Artificial Intelligence
A highlight of SAS Global Forum is the opening session where Dr. Jim Goodnight (SAS CEO) and Dr. Schabenberger share SAS’ vision for the upcoming year and emerging technology trends.
This year’s revelation? The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is here!
According to Dr. Goodnight, it is changing the scope of how we use data to enhance our endeavors, transform industry, and better our lives. Companies are slowly realizing the transformative capability of AI and its ability to amplify human potential.
Dr. Goodnight demonstrated on stage in real time how well SAS Viya worked for one cornerstone of AI, which is facial recognition. Using SAS customers and partners as participants, SAS Viya recognized their faces with a box and even followed each one around the stage. Zencos is excited about this facial technology because we realize how much business is going to transform in the coming years.
At the Monday morning Technology Connection session, Dr. Schabenberger along with data professionals from various industries demoed how they were using AI to solve business issues. In case you missed it, here’s the video replay.
Quality Time to Connect with our Customers
Due to the remote nature of our business, SASGF is the perfect opportunity to connect with our customers attending the conference. We invited customers to a dinner so we could show gratitude for their business and finally meet some face-to-face.
This event allows us to have meaningful conversations that help build and maintain strong customer relationships. We appreciate hearing about the success they have had with our assistance.
Zencos Presentations Provide Value to Attendees
At SASGF, our team shared an array of educational analytics and data communication presentations. In our presentations and workshops, we addressed the latest challenges our clients face while working to extract value from their data.
We focused on text analytics, reducing AML false positives techniques, and data literacy topics. It was encouraging to see our presentations packed, some with standing room only. This ensures us the content we are sharing is useful and interesting to attendees.
Our session about applying the analytics maturity model sparked multiple conversations and many thoughtful questions. Many attendees noted the same issues working with management and managing the cultural shifts required to become a data-driven company. The session was so popular we are repeating it in an upcoming webinar, The Fundamentals of Analytics Transition for Your Company.
We certainly appreciate hearing their glowing reviews of our sessions. One attendee commented, “I have attended all of your sessions! They are the best ones here.” <Aww, shucks>
Our presence in demo area was huge this year. As an Emerald sponsor, we had a double booth. We had swarms of people interested in talking more about the topics in our presentations.
Many were interested in learning how they can implement SAS Viya and SAS Grid. There were lots of questions about how cloud technology worked and could be implemented.
Our customers have the best ideas for using technology to transform their business processes and we are excited to roll-up our sleeves and help.
Dr. Goodnight and Schabenberger made an appearance at our booth where our team got a chance to discuss how we are using SAS software with our customers.
SAS & Partners Committed to the AI Initiative
SAS is committed to investing $1 Billion over the next several years to help with the “I” in initiative, putting analytics into action to amplify human potential.
Their contributions will help to transform the way we do business today by making sense of ever-growing data and automating routine tasks. With the help of SAS software and Zencos, you can start your transformative journey as well!
Here’s the video outtakes from SAS Global Forum.