two or three years with the firm, analysts
are encouraged to further their education
or careers in industry and consulting.
Because of the training and experience they received at AOE, the first few
graduating classes of analysts have
found opportunities in companies including Google, Facebook, Rue La La and
Whole Foods, and have been accepted
in graduate programs in operations research at U.C. Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, MIT and NYU.
Dimitris Bertsimas, program director MIT’s Operations Research Center
(ORC), said, “We have admitted two
AOE analysts this year to the ORC’s
Ph.D. program. Given their strong academic credentials and practical modeling experience, we expect them to thrive
in our program.”
Within the last year, AOE has also
created its own internal incubation laboratory to encourage its people to invest
in more broadly commercializing the
company’s two decades’ worth of existing intellectual property. Using internal
resources, consultants with entrepreneurial drive can build commercial models and tools that leverage the firm’s
existing IP and receive additional compensation if the concept is a commercial
success. The lab benefits consultants
by providing an additional outlet for their
intellectual curiosity – with the potential
a na l y t i c s
upside of additional income – while
maintaining the security, stability and intellectual challenge of its core business.
Future
As it celebrates its 20th anniversary,
AOE continues to thrive while applying the
most sophisticated analytic techniques to
help businesses improve both their top
and bottom lines. In the era of big data, its
consultants produce analyses that move
far beyond the techniques on which operations research was grounded.
Customers have always sought costcutting techniques, but they increasingly
seek analytic solutions to aid decisionmaking. Consultants at AOE combine
business knowledge, communication
skills and unparalleled technical leadership to quickly deliver tools clients need
to succeed in the 21st century. ❙
Mitchell Burman founded Analytics Operations
Engineering in 1994 and serves as its president,
providing the strategic direction of the company.
He received a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in
operations from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Lauren Berk is an analyst at AOE and
holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from
Yale University. Both are members of INFORMS.
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