In my opinion, Business Analytics Using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Enterprise Miner: A Beginner's Guide is a brilliant piece of work! Olivia has written it in such a stunning way as to make it accessible to every reader regardless of their level of competence or background.

The author has done an excellent job in laying down the principles and framework of business analytics while identifying real-life practical challenges faced by practitioners and managers in the industry. She meticulously bound each of these commonly identified challenges to a set of generic workable solutions, to demonstrate how similar tasks may be accomplished in the industry. The level of research in the business analytics aspects, techniques, tools and methods referenced to in the entire book is highly commendable and stands very strong.

The author captures the attention of the reader through a well-illustrated and choreographed story-like presentation combination of text, charts, tables, screenshots, and diagrams. This pictorial dimension adds simplicity to what could otherwise have been a relatively steeper learning curve for the beginner. It also makes it easier for the intermediate and advanced practitioners to easily navigate through the material.

Olivia possesses a unique ability to deliver optimal knowledge, appropriately packaged, to transform any willful reader, from a beginner to an expert practitioner in a fraction of the time! I find Olivia's book to hold key properties that qualify it as a highly dependable and reliable piece of work: All the contents and facts are correct and are easily verifiable; the statements are written without any ambiguity; the presented material is well-organized, comprehensible, concise, complete, and consistent.

I unreservedly recommend Business Analytics Using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Enterprise Miner: A Beginner's Guide as a must read for anyone who aspires to learn business analytics using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Enterprise Miner in the shortest period of time, without stress and filled with a lot of fun!

Brian K. Banda, Ph.D.
Vice President – Model Validation
BBVA Compass Bank

For the third time, Olivia has done an excellent job in translating complex concepts, ideas, and methods into a "stepwise," easy-to-understand implementation. Business Analytics Using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Enterprise Miner is a great book for at least three distinct groups of readers.

The first type would be the aspiring analyst that wants to gain a solid understanding of various descriptive and predictive analytic techniques, as well as their hands-on implementation.

The second category would be the "quantoid" that has knowledge of statistical concepts but needs to learn how to implement the analytic techniques programmatically in the real world. This group will benefit heavily from the detailed charts showing inputs and outputs for each step of the analysis.

The third group could be a marketer that needs to get a better understanding of the different types of analytic methods that may be used to solve a variety of business and marketing problems across a wide range of industry verticals.

Each of the above readers will benefit heavily from Olivia's clear, intelligent, and user-friendly writing style. I recommend this book highly to all of the above audience categories!

Devyani Sadh, Ph.D.
CEO and Chief Data Officer, Data Square
Co-Chair, DMA Analytics Council