The next wave of globalization is here: China and India are now superpowers in their own right, while other high-growth economies are fast approaching. U.S.-based companies, meanwhile, are no longer calling all of the shots anymore. With the pace ever-more frenetic and the future still an open question, the big challenge for leaders of U.S.-led companies is to stay relevant and find the opportunities amidst the challenges of changing market dynamics.

Companies have long used business intelligence for specific applications, but these initiatives were too narrow to affect corporate performance. Now, leading firms are using the sophisticated analysis of business data as the foundation for developing competitive strategy. Instead of a single application, they are building broad capabilities for enterprise-level business analytics and intelligence.

In this session, Thomas H. Davenport, professor and President’s Chair, Information Technology and Management, Babson College and author of Thinking for a Living, will describe his recent research on firms that compete on the basis of their analytical prowess and will provide guidelines for adopting similar approaches. Davenport will be joined by Netezza customer Rob Holland, senior vice president, US retail measurement, ACNielsen who has excelled at using analytics as a key tenet of forming and executing strategy; Carol J. McCall, VP, Research and Development Innovation Center, Humana Inc. will also participate in the discussion.

About Rob Holland
Rob Holland is Senior Vice President Marketing for Nielsen Retail Measurement. He has responsibility for the development and management of retailer and manufacturer focused POS products and services across the United States. Specific product deliverables include the Scantrack® Market Measurement and Key Account services as well as Scantrack retailer products.

Prior to Nielsen, Rob led the Corporate Marketing Analytics group for Safeway Inc., a US$35 billion grocery retailer. He was responsible for Corporate Category Management (SCOP) activities, business decision support for the corporate merchandising departments and all analytical activities within the corporate marketing department and executive management team.

Rob began his Safeway career leading strategy and planning for the Corporate Brands, Supply Operations division, a multi-billion dollar private label manufacturing and marketing business. Prior to Safeway, Rob spent 12 years in various finance & business analytics positions at The Clorox Company, including brand analytics, corporate financial planning and as the finance lead for the Europe, Middle East, Asia division in Hong Kong.

Rob graduated from San Diego State University with a B.S. degree in Business Administration – Finance.

About Forbes
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About Netezza Corporation
Netezza (NYSE Arca: NZ) is the global leader in analytic appliances that dramatically simplify high-performance analytics for business users across the extended enterprise, delivering significant competitive and operational advantage in today’s information-intensive marketplaces. The Netezza Performance Server family of streaming analytic appliances brings appliance simplicity to a broad range of complex data warehouse and analytic challenges. Customers who have realized the benefits of Netezza appliances include Ahold, Amazon.com, CNET Networks, Debenhams, Department of Veterans Affairs, Epsilon, Neiman Marcus, Orange UK, Premier, Inc., Ross Stores, Ryder System, Inc., The Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media. Based in Framingham, Mass., Netezza has offices in Washington, DC, the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific. For more information about Netezza, please visit www.netezza.com.

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