AI-Enabled Analytics for Business

CHAPTER 12Use Case: Analytics Are for Everyone

In some ways, this last case study is the most interesting, as on the surface, it seems the most unlikely environment for analytics.1 Often we associate the use of AI-enabled analytics with big companies, big data, and herds of data scientists feverishly working on cloud platforms with their machine learning and programming teams to deliver new applications. They boil the ocean with “big data” to do big things. But as we will learn, AI is for all.

The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) is a gem in the museum world, delightfully located on the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas. SAMA is a mid-size 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. In art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder: how can analytics be applied to such a seemingly subjective environment?

This is the story of Lisa Tapp, COO/CFO of SAMA, who received an invitation to attend the Analytics Academy produced by the Finance Analytics Institute. Lisa was attracted by the module “Systems & Storytelling for Data-Driven Decisions” because she wanted to learn how to tell a better story to her Finance Committee. Specifically, she wanted to make her financial packet better and easier to assemble and tell the committee a story that was better understood and informative.

THE ROAD TO ANALYTICS

Although Lisa was not specifically seeking analytics for SAMA, she nonetheless traveled to San Diego, California, to attend two days of courses. She learned how analytics could both solve her primary ...