Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, July/August 2014 | Page 69

achieve additional gains. However, for
many business processes, there is eventually a point of diminishing returns: The
calculations may become more detailed
and precise, but the end results are no
more accurate or valuable.
Using analytics leads to better
auditability and accountability. With
the use of analytics, the decision-making
process becomes more structured and
repeatable, and a decision becomes less
dependent on the individual making the
decision. When you change which people are in various positions, things still
happen in the same way. You can often
go back and find out what analysis was
used and why a decision was made. …
Dr. Brenda L. Dietrich is an IBM Fellow and
vice president. She joined IBM in 1984, and
during her career she has worked with almost
every IBM business unit and applied analytics to
numerous IBM decision processes. She currently
leads the emerging technologies team in the IBM
Watson group. For more than a decade, she led
the Mathematical Sciences function in the IBM
Research division, where she was responsible for
both basic research on computational mathematics
and for the development of novel applications of
mathematics for both IBM and its clients.
In addition to her work within IBM, she has been
the president of INFORMS, the world’s largest
professional society for operations research and
management sciences. An INFORMS Fellow,

she has received multiple service awards from
INFORMS.
Dr. Emily C. Plachy is a distinguished engineer
in Business Analytics Transformation at IBM,
where she is responsible for leading an increased
use of analytics across IBM. Since joining IBM
in 1982, she has integrated data analysis into
her work and has held a number of technical
leadership roles including CTO, process,
methods, and tools in IBM Global Business
Services.
In 1992, Emily was elected to the IBM
Academy of Technology, a body of approximately
1,000 of IBM’s top technical leaders, and she
served as its president from 2009 to 2011. She is
a member of INFORMS.
Maureen Fitzgerald Norton, MBA, JD, is a
distinguished market intelligence professional
and executive program manager in Business
Analytics Transformation, responsible for driving
the widespread use of analytics across IBM. In
her previous role, she led project teams applying
analytics to IBM Smarter Planet initiatives in
public safety, global social services, commerce
and merchandising.
Norton became the first woman in IBM to
earn the designation of Distinguished Market
Intelligence Professional for developing
innovative approaches to solving business issues
and knowledge gaps through analysis.
Note: This article is adapted from the book,
“Analytics Across the Enterprise: How IBM
Realizes Business Value from Big Data and
Analytics,” authored by Brenda L. Dietrich, Emily
C. Plachy and Maureen F. Norton, published by
Pearson/IBM Press, May 2014, ISBN 978-013-383303-4, ©2014 by International Business
Machines Corporation. For more information,
visit: ibmpressbooks.com.

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