Tag: TaylorT- Entrepreneurship

Thursday, June 8th

Sadly, today was my last day at SAS, but it was also one of my favorites. I spent the day learning about the Finance Department at SAS and the different jobs it entails. Honestly, I never thought I would like accounting or taxing, but today I realized that Finance covers a lot more than that.

One of the coolest jobs at SAS, in my opinion, was the head treasurer that kept control of the cash flow for the company. I’m a little bit of an economics geek, so I really enjoyed talking to someone whose main job is to watch the foreign exchange market and look at dows in order to prepare investments with SAS’ money. Below I have a picture of a 3D image he has in his office that basically shows the history of the money market in America revolving around the federal reserve which is very neat. In addition to my meeting with the treasurer, my other favorite part of the day was learning how to do Finance Managment through the use of CDC and OLAP charts in excel. It was interesting to see how different people can view a company through either its revenue or its expenses.

Overall, I had a good time at SAS and I am so thankful that I had this opportunity. I learned so many new things and was finally able to see how the corporate world functions.

 

 

Wednesday, June 19th

Today I was in the sales and presales department at SAS. Today I followed a different schedule by only shadowing one individual. This was a cool experience because I was able to see what the full day entails for a sales representative and how they sell SAS software.

 

One of my favorite parts of the days was being able to look at all the companies and relationships that he was in charge of. The main way they market SAS software to companies is by promoting demand forecasting. My host had 15 companies he keeps track of in total, the largest being Budweiser. He explained to me how important it is to go out and personally make and maintain connections with the company you are trying to sell to. One of the most interesting parts of the job is being able to travel around the country in order to close deals. These excursions cause the people in the sales department to have very busy and interesting schedules. For an upcoming meeting with a client, he is going to a baseball game in Louisiana. I found it really interesting that this job involves so much travel and not just the basic cold calling and prospecting which I expected.

Tuesday, June 6th

Today I was shadowing the Web Development division at SAS. I was able to learn how SAS programs their official online website (and support site) and how they decide its design, layout, and message. To develop these online, they use a software called AEM, which I was given a brief tutorial to. One interesting part of their jobs was how they analyze website traffic. They use Google Analytics and their own personal SAS software in order to track data. This data helps the Web Development division to analyze which pages drive traffic and what keywords potential customers are searching. They also showed me how this information can be used to help their advertising strategies. I found this process to be very intriguing because of the way it involves people of all backgrounds from graphic designers to international internet representatives.

In addition to touring the Web department, I was able to go to a presentation about using Data for Good through a new campaign that uses SAS analytics for humanitarianism. It was such a cool opportunity to learn about upcoming projects that are using big data to help individuals from all over the world.

Monday, June 5th

Today I spent my time with the Information Technology department at SAS. Besides having to walk across the SAS campus in the pouring rain, it was a great experience. Programming and computer intelligence is definitely not my expertise, but I managed to learn a lot from this one day. Because SAS is a technology driven company, the IT department is huge (630 people). One of my favorite parts of the day was when I was given a tour of their data centers. There were huge machines that were storing information for hundreds of different consumers of SAS software. I found it interesting that SAS has multiple back up plans in case one machine stops working by having multiple backup generators. SAS also always has an IT employee on call in case something threatens the safety of their or their consumer’s information. I was also able to see where they conserve and transform their energy which has the voltage to provide power for all of those generators and machines and the SAS campus itself. This data center I was not able to take pictures of just in case someone used the information to hack the center. The intensive wiring setup of the multiple machines that transported the electricity was fascinating. It was really interesting to see the range of the roles in the IT department and how necessary their role is in a corporate company.

Friday, June 2nd

Today I spent the day with the legal department at SAS. Interestingly, SAS has its own attorneys in-house, consisting of 45-60 employees. Their jobs range contract negotiations to dealing with international SAS subsidiaries. I got to shadow the latter team which included five team members.

One interesting thing I learned was that SAS has so many global offices, and that the relationships between SAS headquarters and these entities are controlled by legal. Each employee has a map in their room in order to pinpoint which countries they are responsible for. For example, one of the women were in charge of Latin American and the southeast and southwest countries in Europe. Today, she received requests from Brazil to have twelve different documents to follow their legal processes. Apparently, in most other countries outside the US, documents such as passport information and social security numbers are not seen as necessarily confidential which may cause legality concerns when SAS headquarters has to share that information to comply with the various international legal systems. I learned that there isn’t an actual definition for “international law” because law is so differentiated from country to country, making it impossible to always know how every process works.

One random fact about today: It was cake day! I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this department and how everyone got together in the afternoon in order to eat cake to celebrate June employee birthdays.

Today, Thursday, June 1st, I got to shadow individuals from the Internal and External Communications departments at SAS. I got to learn about SAS’ personal intranet and its press releases, articles, and social media usage to reach consumers.

One of my favorite activities from today was helping with a video shoot that Internal Communications was filming for a employee overview video for the Research & Development department along with a shoot for their own department. I was able to meet the writers that wrote the scripts and the videographers/editors. I got to help move the sets from out the studio to differentparts of the camp us. For one video, I was in charge of monitoring the teleprompter (which they built right at the SAS’ scenics warehouse). The employees explained to me that their schedules were very chaotic (they even went to a meeting about Crisis Emergency Operations for SAS between shoots), but I found it very entertaining and exciting to be on my feet.  Another interesting part of my day was when the Managing Editor for External Communications was able to show me how Google basically controls their department because of the importance of organic growth. I found it very interesting how minor word choices can actually have a big impact in how people can access and learn about SAS’ software.

On Wednesday, June 31st, I spent the day shadowing two individuals in the Marketing department at SAS. I was only able to get one picture because I spent the whole day in different meetings. In the morning, I followed someone in traditional marketing. In her first meeting, she discussed strategies to minimize the extent of interrupting emails, which I learned were overlapping email lists from different SAS marketing specialists when trying to reach potential customers for specific programs, webinars, and more related to promoting SAS. In the meeting of only four people, they worked effectively to create a new plan that would ensure that interrupting decreased significantly because they came to a consensus that the quality of the potential consumers is better than the quantity of potential consumers which I found to be an interesting approach to the problem since the more common method would just be to try to reach as many individuals as possible. Though, with this strategy they would be able to target specific groups of people that have certain criteria and not turn away people by bombarding them with emails. In the next conference meeting, there were over twenty individuals. I found the atmospheres to be very different and it was interesting to see both the benefits and flaws of both. This meeting dealt with a lot of topics, one of which was related to the interrupting emails and customer journeys. In this meeting, concerns were acknowledged and were planned to be addressed in the future. In the meeting, everyone seemed very involved and driven which made it seem effective. In the afternoon, I met with another individual who is a part of  ABM (Accounting Based Marketing). This type of marketing focuses on specific companies and advertising SAS in a way to directly apply and appeal to that company. She had just started in this position because ABM was just being introduced to expand the marketing department at SAS. I got to see how they will plan to use social media and organic growth to direct and modify their efforts to try to secure partnerships one by one. Today really opened my eyes to the great variety of marketing specialists and the importance of having fluctuating general strategies.

On Tuesday, June 30th, I got the chance to shadow both the Corporate Creative and Human Resources departments at SAS, a software company. In the morning, I got to meet the Head of Advertising who explained to me the campaign strategies the company is currently using. She emphasized the importance of SAS’s new motto, “Let’s Change That” as being the core of the company’s message. This means that they are trying to portray SAS as the solution to a lot of businesses current problems. I found it interesting how much effort is put into simple designs and visual choices. For example, SAS is now using a new color scheme which was apparently very hard to approve. The additional variety of specific hues is supposed to enhance the visual expereince of SAS’s website, white papers, booths, etc. After this meeting, I was introduced to a key graphic designer at the company. I was able to see both his creating process and final work (which I have some attached pictures of). As an example, he showed me one of his designs for a SAS interest booth for an upcoming event and then took me to SAS’s personal printing warehouse where his design was printed on fabric to be 10 feet in height. He told me that his favorite task so far was creating the design for an event at Disney World which SAS was sponsoring. Because SAS is such a large company, the graphic designers get so many unique projects to work on. In the afternoon, I switched buildings to meet with an employee with the Human Resources department. I got to sit in on a meeting concerning future budgeting for recruiting students from different colleges in the US. I then helped the team organize folders in preparation for an upcoming orientation for summer interns at the company. I learned a lot this day by exploring such a wide range of fields within a single company.