On this episode of the Roadmap to Revenue podcast, host Greg Silverman of Concentric interviews Chris Daniele, Vice President, Director of Digital Analytics and Measurement Lead at BBDO New York.

Chris talks about his career path in research and analytics, which started with being out of work after being laid off from a TV production job and landing his first research job though a friend of a friend.

His insatiable curiosity and appetite to learn everything about his field, or as he says, “to know more than just Excel and Nielsen ratings,” led him to his position today, where he leads a team responsible for building out data-driven capabilities that lead to creative and successful advertising campaigns.

This blend of marketing and science is unusual, but it is a field that is growing every year. Because it is a fairly new discipline, Chris is mostly self-taught since there were no Marketing Science degrees available back when he went to college. He drops some sage advice to young people starting out in the business on how to best prepare for the top jobs early on.

If you are working in analytics and have always wanted to sit down with your peers at other companies and pick their brain, the Roadmap to Revenue podcast is the show for you.

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Sponsored by Concentric

This episode is brought to you by Concentric. We enable businesses to find their maximum revenue through prescriptive analytics.

Our platform builds a mathematical twin of your market to understand the past, forecast how plans will work in the future, and search for opportunities to improve that forecast. This gives you the foresight and optimization capability that delivers revenue and a return on investment.

Ready to experience market simulation just like our other clients Gillette, Toyota, Ford, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Whirlpool, Universal, and more? Contact us today at ConcentricMarket.com

In this episode of the Roadmap to Revenue podcast, your host Greg Silverman has a great discussion with Gurkan Sener, Head of Marketing Science/Data Science at Universal Parks and Resorts, to discuss his journey into analytics and forecasting the future.

Gurkan started his career as a business analyst in the credit card industry. He shares the difference between how they used analytics then versus how and why he uses analytics today.

As head of the marketing science team, they test, measure, and design experiments that help determine Universal’s target audience and the messages and offers that work best.

Gurkan has used a wide variety of tools over his career. He talks about the different use cases for them. He shares why he believes the different analytic strategies are all useful in different situations, including how he’s learned to decide on the correct approach to use.

He also shares the critical piece of advice he’d give his younger self about where to focus, even more so than the data, even as a data scientist.

Finally, Gurkan talks about the area he sees having the most significant impact on analytics moving forward. He shares the limits this change will cause and how the industry should shift in response.

Resources Mentioned:

SAS

R

S-Plus

Python

Tableau

Excel

Adobe Analytics

ConcentricMarket

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Sponsored by Concentric

This episode is brought to you by Concentric. We enable businesses to find their maximum revenue through prescriptive analytics.

Our platform builds a mathematical twin of your market to understand the past, forecast how plans will work in the future, and search for opportunities to improve that forecast. This gives you the foresight and optimization capability that delivers revenue and a return on investment.

Ready to experience market simulation just like our other clients Gillette, Toyota, Ford, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Whirlpool, Universal, and more? Contact us today at ConcentricMarket.com

In this episode of the Roadmap to Revenue podcast, your host Greg Silverman sits down with Armin Kakas VP of Advanced Analytics Commercialization at American Tire Distributors and Head of AI Commercialization at Torqata Data and Analytics.

Armin started his career with an MBA and then fell in love with analytics. He has broad experience working in different industries, from financial services (GE) to consumer products (Walmart and Best Buy), and now the tire industry.

The CEO of Armin’s current company has a vision of transforming the tire industry through data and analytics. He talks about how they’re helping to relieve over $1 billion of inefficiencies through better data analytics.

He shares the solutions they’re providing to their retail partners, addressing pricing, inventory, and profitability challenges—all through better data and analytics.

As far as the future goes, Armin believes that blockchain is going to become more relevant, along with an emphasis on the bifurcation of data scientists. He sees “full-stack data scientists” skilled beyond traditional analytics responsibilities and democratization of analytics for the masses being two significant shifts.

Armin ends the episode with advice to younger analytics professionals. He says to focus more on the actionable impact and business results you’re driving, and way less on the analytics sophistication or the tools you use.

Resources Mentioned:

Sponsored by Concentric

This episode is brought to you by Concentric. We enable businesses to find their maximum revenue through prescriptive analytics.

Our platform builds a mathematical twin of your market to understand the past, forecast how plans will work in the future, and search for opportunities to improve that forecast. This gives you the foresight and optimization capability that delivers revenue and a return on investment.

Ready to experience market simulation just like our other clients Gillette, Toyota, Ford, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Whirlpool, Universal, and more? Contact us today at ConcentricMarket.com.

In this episode of the Roadmap to Revenue podcast, your host Greg Silverman of Concentric sits down with Eric Duell, Executive Director of Strategic Analytics at Comcast.

At Comcast, Eric’s focus is on the cable segment, leading a team of analysts that provides strategic analytics to leadership.

As with most people who work in Analytics, Eric’s journey was not clear cut, arriving at his current position by starting out as a freelance newspaper photographer at the tender age of 15. As his career progressed and he moved into various fields, he came to realise that Analytics is about knitting together the pieces that may stem from a hunch, but end up telling a story.

The discussion centers around using data to determine human behavior, and confirms that when you delve into an analysis, you have to start with a point of view— even if it turns out you were wrong.

The episode concludes with the fact that if a person has a hunch, the right thing to do is to follow it and see where the data takes you. Over time, Eric developed a strong enough confidence and wisdom from lessons learned, to know that there's probably something there.

Resources Mentioned:

Gartner Ascendancy Model

Lotus 

VisiCalc

Excel

Tableau

Sponsored by Concentric

This episode is brought to you by Concentric. We enable businesses to find their maximum revenue through prescriptive analytics.

Our platform builds a mathematical twin of your market to understand the past, forecast how plans will work in the future, and search for opportunities to improve that forecast. This gives you the foresight and optimization capability that delivers revenue and a return on investment.

Ready to experience market simulation just like our other clients Gillette, Toyota, Ford, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Whirlpool, Universal, and more? Contact us today at ConcentricMarket.com.

In this episode of the Roadmap to Revenue podcast, your host Greg Silverman sits down with Charles Ellis, SVP, Marketing & Data Sciences at Material to discuss his journey into analytics. He talks about how he’s navigated a 27-year career, and the interesting insight he sees as the future of analytics professionals.

Charles took an interesting path into analytics that started through politics. He worked in politics for several years then decided to pursue a Ph.D. But he didn’t want a career in academic research or teaching, so he finally settled on using his skills in the marketing research space.

Charles shares:

Charles also talks about the time he got kicked out of an account manager’s office for telling the truth about data and research.

And finally, he shares the “light bulb” moment he had after discovering what he believes will be the future of market research and analytics, based on a lesson he learned from the former head of analytics of Proctor & Gamble, Joan Lewis.

Resources Mentioned:

Sponsored by Concentric

This episode is brought to you by Concentric. We enable businesses to find their maximum revenue through prescriptive analytics.

Our platform builds a mathematical twin of your market to understand the past, forecast how plans will work in the future, and search for opportunities to improve that forecast. This gives you the foresight and optimization capability that delivers revenue and a return on investment.

Ready to experience market simulation just like our other clients Gillette, Toyota, Ford, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Whirlpool, Universal, and more? Contact us today at ConcentricMarket.com

In this episode to the Roadmap to Revenue podcast, your host Greg Silverman sits down with his first guest, Emily Mower, VP of Data Science at Concentric, to discuss the similarities and differences of her early career in analytics and what she does today.

Before Concentric, Emily earned a PhD at Harvard’s Kennedy School where she researched and taught econometrics and machine learning. She quickly realized that she didn’t like the non-collaborative nature of academia.

She also realized the political challenges of bringing to life the econometric models she was studying and teaching. So Emily pivoted her research to applied industry-focused research where she could...

Emily admits that when she started consulting in the analytics field she didn’t have the framework to have a full understanding of the differences between descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics.

But looking back, Emily can now see where she intuitively applied the frameworks in many of her early career projects.

Emily also shares:

It’s obvious Emily enjoys her role of combining data science and product design. Serious analytics professionals who enjoy their career will enjoy this conversation.

Sponsored by Concentric

This episode is brought to you by Concentric. We enable businesses to find their maximum revenue through prescriptive analytics.

Our platform builds a mathematical twin of your market to understand the past, forecast how plans will work in the future, and search for opportunities to improve that forecast. This gives you the foresight and optimization capability that delivers revenue and a return on investment.

Ready to experience market simulation just like our other clients Gillette, Toyota, Ford, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Whirlpool, Universal, and more? Contact us today at ConcentricMarket.com

On the Roadmap to Revenue Podcast, your host Greg Silverman of Concentric interviews today’s industry leaders in analytics and consumer insights to discuss challenges, best practices, and what the future holds.

If you are working in analytics and have always wanted to sit down with your peers at other companies and pick their brain, this is the show for you.

Each episode will walk through the guest’s journey in the four stages of analytics: Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictions, and Prescriptive.

Join us each week as we bring you a new interview and extract our guests’ expertise.