Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, May/June 2014 | Page 56

ADVEN T U RE S I N C O NS U LT I NG VFT player evaluation: converting subjective assessments into quantifiable rankings. sports zealot, Chris was very interested but needed to understand the business case before committing to this decision. Jacob and I met to discuss the potential opportunities and the growing application of analytics in sports. Jacob highlighted a number of areas where analytics could be leveraged in the sports domain. More importantly, they both recognized the limited use of advanced analytics from the O.R. discipline, which could quickly be adapted to solve many problems in sports, as many of the challenges are similar to those being faced in defense. In fact, Perduco was already working in a number of these crossover areas. 56 | A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G ‘QUANTIFIED WARRIOR’ The defense community is very interested in what is called “quantified warrior,” which is an ability to monitor and assess a soldier’s condition and to understand how to optimize their performance on the battlefield. As one can imagine, athletic teams are very interested in maximizing their players’ performance “on the battlefield.” A second example is related to overhead monitoring and the collection of surveillance data to understand and predict activities on the ground. The intelligence community is continuously engaged in this type of effort in order to provide better assessments of enemy activity to commanders on the ground. W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G