8 minute read
PGS Star of the Week June 2022 Week 2
Star of the Week
June 2022 Week 2
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Mark D. Demers
The Leading Leader In Technology
It’s a great honour to interview one of the great leaders of our time. A man who supports others to become world changers in their fields of purpose. A true supporter of women empowerment and a great catalyst of change in the world of technology. His name is Mark D. Demers.
Mark is the Sr. Director at SAS, the world’s leading analytics and artificial intelligence software company. He leads globally a team of industry practice directors, industry marketing, market strategists and consultants and thought leaders that drive industry vision and product direction, marketing and sales support for SAS products and solutions into strategic industries. Mark and his team work closely with SAS’ customers, marketing, sales, R&D, and technical staff around the world, as well as partners, to position, market and sell SAS solutions for Government, Banking, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail, Health Care & Life Sciences, Energy, Communications, Agriculture and Education sectors using advanced analytics and machine learning/artificial intelligence. Mark is an great asset in the world of technology.
PGS: Mark, welcome to today’s interview with Lady Anita.
MD: Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about one of the hottest topics in business today – digital transformation and how leveraging data and analytics can unlock better decisions and create new value.
PGS: You have been a great supporter of our global mission, and it’s always an honour to have opportunity to rob minds with you in order to discover new ways of adding value to those we serve.
MD:
PGS: With the ever-increasing change in the world of technology and how humans interact with one another, what is your prediction for the next 5 years?
MD: We are at a unique moment in time. Data creation has reached epic proportions but data itself doesn’t drive an organization. Decisions do.
From big strategic decisions to thousands of small transactional decisions, every good or bad decision is consequential – quickly compounded by the proliferation of automation.
Three disruptive technologies are coming together right now – cloud computing, analytics, and artificial intelligence. When harnessed, they help organizations overcome forces preventing them from leveraging data to make the right decisions at the moment for every moment, connecting and scaling decisions through powerful and trusted AI-enabled analytics and automation.
PGS: As an expert in the technological industry, please share more light on Artificial Intelligence (Ai) and how it affects our lives as humans.
MD:
But AI must be fair and ethical. We have to be transparent and responsible for how AI and Machine Learning algorithms and models are designed and work. SAS is committed to the development, implementation, and promotion of responsible AI solutions that ensure sustainable improvements for our customers, the economy, and society. SAS promotes responsible innovation through our engagement with policymakers and regulators worldwide, corporate policy forums such as the Business Roundtable, and our recently charted Data Ethics Practice (DEP).
Today, every industry, business, and organization wants to make use of data, AI, and analytics to enable innovation and better outcomes – but bringing all the latest (Technology, Data, Analytics, People) together into a working and agile system that creates innovation and measurable value from data faster is one of the biggest challenges organizations face today.
Our experience and the vision of our customers and partners shape our technology and solutions to deliver time-to-innovation and value faster than any other analytics. By striving for harmony, scale, and uncompromising empowerment we are enabling a new powerful agile ecosystem of faster and better decisions for everyone and everywhere. We believe we are creating the future of our interactions with data, analytics, and AI – delivering a new innovation system for a more intelligent, responsible, and safer world.
PGS: What is your message for world leaders?
MD: It’s not enough anymore for organizations to say “we’ll make a better decision next time” because “next time” means we weren’t where we needed to be this time. And with the velocity of decisions being made each day and the increasing dependency on data and analytics to help us make the right choices, our expectations have changed.
Decisions founded in data and analytics are superior to those that aren’t. It’s that simple. As organizations digitally transform, analytically driven decision-making is becoming a critical differentiator. Whether you’re driving thousands of decisions a second without human intervention, or augmenting human-led ones with insights, SAS’ industry-leading technologies make it easy to scale and drive decisions consistently. SAS helps organizations to make transparent and explainable decisions – whether automated or augmented – to build trust for the long term.
We expect analytics to improve society, drive innovation, improve decisioning and increase agility within organizations.
These mounting expectations are ambitious, but we want to help you discover insights in your data and build trust in your ability to make better decisions – to meet whatever challenges lie ahead.
And this type of advanced preparation is what will get us to the state of resilience we’re all chasing. At work. At home. Personally. Professionally. We want to be better now, so we don’t have to say “next time.”
PGS: Please tell us more about SAS and how your services impact the world.
MD: We are tapping into a spirit of curiosity – meaning we are relentless in our pursuit of better. We are relentless about overcoming challenges to solve problems, not by simply asking more questions but ask the questions that spark innovation, deliver value and get the work done efficiently.
Every new technology is meant to create positive change. But the explosion of new technologies and capabilities also creates exclusion, friction, and lack of agility. Better Together is about bringing harmony, scale, and uncompromising empowerment to an entire ecosystem of commercial and open-source solutions. It’s not about either/or, but the value of And. That is how ideas and innovation thrive.
The world’s opportunities locked in data can’t be realized by an elite few but only by the collective intelligence of the many. The future of analytics encourages participation of everyone, bringing together creators and consumers and giving access to data and insights with technology that adapts to people – making it consumable however you work.
Wherever there is data, there is potential value to improve, innovate, disrupt, and save lives, to be more equitable. Whether your data are in a data center, in the cloud, or coming off edge devices and sensors in industry and society.
PGS: If you knew what you know now, what would you do differently?
MD: Honestly, I would have gotten into data science and analytics even earlier than I did 20-years ago. There is no end in sight to how fast and far artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced analytics can help change the world. We’re all feeling this sense of urgency to become more resilient. That’s why there’s so much momentum around AI in the analytics space and it’s why 76% of enterprises are prioritizing AI and machine learning in their budgets (Forbes).
Additionally, as data literacy cements itself as an essential skill in today’s data-rich world, I’d encourage more leaders to get involved in helping curious minds – from elementary classrooms to university campuses and beyond – learn the importance of data. Whether in service to our community, interpreting the news, or championing the UN’s Global Goals, it is obvious that when people understand data, an entirely new world opens to them.
PGS: Finally, what would you say to your younger self?
MD: I would tell me and any of my younger-self friends to get involved in STEM. Through Data and analytics, we all have the chance to change the world.
Imagine a world where every child is data literate.
Or, a world where analytics helps reduce poverty rates in the most poverty-stricken parts of the world.
Or where lending biases at banks could be prevented.
We believe this is all possible with the support of analytics.
PGS: Thank you so much for your time and we wish you success on your endeavours.
MD: Thank you so much for this opportunity today. Please keep up your amazing work at Pgmag.
PGS: Please share your website/links with us.
MD: linkedin.com/in/markddemers
www.SAS.com
