Acknowledgments
We’re collectively grateful for all of the companies that shared their analytical successes and frustrations with us. Some of the companies and managers in the Business Analytics Concours research program were particularly helpful and generous with their time, including David Fogarty at GE Money, Gary Greenwald and Marcia Tal at Citi, Lisa Tourville at Humana, and Pat Steele at Delta Dental of California. We are also grateful to the analytical leaders and analysts we profiled, including Jim and Chris McCann of 1-800-Flowers.com, Tom Anderson of Integrity Interactive, Shannon Antorcha of Carnival Cruise Lines, Greg Poole of Talbots, Joe Megibow of Expedia.com, Steven Udvarhelyi of Independence Blue Cross, Daryl Wansink of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, David Scamehorn of Advance Auto Parts, Tony Branda of RBS, and Marc Gordon and Byrne Doyle of Best Buy.
Several analytics vendors have also been helpful in sponsoring research and events around this topic. SAS has been particularly helpful, and its people particularly pleasant to work with. In particular, we’d like to thank Jim Goodnight, Jim Davis, Scott van Valkenburg, Mike Bright, Michael Coppotelli, Anne Milley, Gaurav Verma, Monet Meek, Ken Bland, Margo Stutesman, and Annette Green.
Other vendor firms that have supported our work include FICO, IBM/Cognos/SPSS, Informatica, InforSense, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Teradata, and Tibco Spotfire. Mike Thompson and Wanda Shive of Waterstone Analytics have been very helpful in sharing their ideas and experiences. Thanks to the companies and the particular individuals involved.
We had four “anonymous” reviewers of the manuscript of this book, but three identified themselves: Ken Demma, Mark McDonald, and Anne Milley. Every single comment they made was helpful, and we’ve tried to incorporate them all.
Jim Wilson, a great writer and editor, took one last pass at the manuscript in its last month of editing to iron out the wrinkles. We think he did a wonderful job.
At Harvard Business Press, Melinda Merino was—not surprisingly, since we’ve worked with her before—appropriately encouraging and constructively critical at all the right times. Thanks also to David Goehring for early insights, and to Erin Brown for marketing and PR help.
In terms of individual thanks, Tom sends a grateful nod to his wife Jodi and his sons Hayes and Chase for their love and support. Hayes, a Harvard Lampoon alumnus, suggested several mildly humorous additions to the text as well. Tony Paulson suggested some great examples, and Dwight Gertz provided wise counsel about decision making. Tom dedicates his third of the book to Ann and Lawson Hamilton. He will tell them which pages to read later.
Jeanne thanks Accenture’s leadership for sharing their enthusiastic support and encouragement along the way. Particular thanks go to Bob Thomas, executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance; Accenture CEO Bill Green; Mark Foster, Group Chief Executive of Management Consulting and Global Markets; Dave Rich, Global Managing Director of Analytics and Customer Relationship Management; Royce Bell, CEO of Accenture Information Management Services; and Mark Spelman, Global Managing Director of Strategy, for their consistent support and always-incisive insights. She is grateful to the many senior executives at Accenture who generously shared their candid feedback, real-world experience, and expertise, especially Glenn Gutwillig, Michael Bova, Pierre Puts, George Marcotte, and Brian McCarthy. A special thank-you to friends and colleagues at the Accenture Institute for High Performance for their generous contributions to the analytics research, in particular Allan Alter, Elizabeth Craig, Henry Egan, and Karen Smith.
Jeanne also thanks her husband, Carl, and daughter, Lauren (the real analytical talent in her family), for their patience, love, and inspiration. Thanks also to her sister Susie and to Shawn Nepo for being her biggest fans. Jeanne dedicates her share of this book to Rhoda Harris, for her love, wit, and wisdom, including “Rhoda’s more so” principle, which have profoundly enriched her life.
Bob would like to thank members of the research team and other colleagues at The Concours Group and nGenera Corporation who contributed to the Business Analytics Concours research program: Tim Bevins, Jen Bigora, Frank Capek, Laura Carrillo, George Danner, Maira Galins, Mark Martin, Chris O’Leary, and Mark Rennella. Special thanks to Espen Andersen of the Norwegian School of Management and to Ron Christman for his steadfast support of our research and development of better management techniques.
On the personal front, Bob is grateful for the love and support of his wife, Lynne Barrett, and their son, James Barrett-Morison, both superb analysts in their own right.