Chinenye Anuforo & Chiamaka Ajeamo

SAS Africa has called on different organisations to embrace analytics and artificial intelligence to modernise their processes and systems. The purpose is to help reduce compliance costs, improve efficiency and effectiveness, stay competitive and drive innovation.

This was the thrust of the discussions at the SAS Road to Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Showcase in Lagos last week.

Desan Naidoo, vice president, SAS Africa, welcoming the participants, noted that “seeing we are in the analytics economy where data, people and machines work right to accelerate the pace of innovation, critical business decisions must be made via data analytics instead of gut feelings and guess work.

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“At SAS, we are the leaders in business analytics software and services, and we help organizations across the globe transform their data into deep and well-defined insights that provide fresh perspective on business, helping to identify what’s working and fix what isn’t and innovate in ways that keep you ahead of the competition. Our solutions turn large amounts of data into knowledge you can act on, and also empower business leaders to capitalize on new opportunities and be seen as strategic business advisers by using analytics to align the marketing process with the customer journey.”

He added, “we want to avail businesses operating in Nigeria with solutions that help them to achieve a customer-centric business strategy with an integrated decision management approach underpinned by artificial intelligence capabilities such as machine learning and cognitive computing. Our platforms address critical challenges across marketing —including planning customer-centric strategies, gaining insight from big data and analytics, optimizing omni-channel customer interactions, and understanding the customer’s digital experience.”

In his keynote presentation, Neil Harbisson, world’s first ‘cyborg’ artist, said, “Humans have limited number of sensors, but if we merge with technology, we could have more sensors that will enable us understand and unfold the real beauty of nature. We can add new senses and additional organs to ex- tend our bodies’ capacity to experience the world. We can, in effect, redesign ourselves. Our current evolutionary step is to merge with technology and take an active part in the birth of our future selves. I work with artificial senses, which I call AS.”

In his presentation, Senior Business Solutions Manager – Advanced Analytics & AI, SAS, Larry Orimoloye, encouraged firms to adopt AI as it is transforming businesses by enhancing current analytical capabilities to better understand customers and deliver the best experiences like never before and fast enough for business differentiation. AI also sets new target for organizations and helps them to make informed decisions based on the outcome of its data analytics.