1. Explain why House's path-goal theory might affect an organization's decision to adopt a business analytics tool like SAS.

2. How could access to SAS data affect an employee's high or low LMX relationship with their leader?

3. A leader with which leadership style would be most likely to seek out analytical results from SAS?

4. FURTHER RESEARCH the success of a leader can be influenced as much by her access to correct pertinent information as her leadership style. Describe a situation in which a leader would serve her organization best by utilizing analytical information provided by SAS, even if he choice to do so goes against her personal leadership style. Then describe a situation in which an organization would benefit more from a leader's personal style than her interpretation of analytical data.

Leadership isn’t just about style and charisma. Key players need to make sense of massive amounts of information and successfully predict how and where their organization should go next. Learn how SAS, the most popular business analytics software, helps leaders do just that.

Dr. Bruce Bedford is a learned man. He spent years pursuing collegiate and postgraduate education. After leaving school, he joined Oberweis Dairy and is currently its vice president of marketing analytics and consumer insight. He uses complex diagnostic tools to study the intricacies of Oberweis’s business and suggest micro-adjustments that could have million-dollar outcomes. Recently, he was tasked with a career-defi ning challenge: Stop milk bottle fraud.

It echoes an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman hatched a scheme to take thousands of recyclable bottles to Michigan to redeem them for a nickel more than in New York. But bottle fraud cuts into dairy companies’ profi ts, and Dr. Bedford is investigating it using high-tech software that combines predictive modeling, data mining, and state-of-the-art visualization tools. Sounds like CSI ? It’s more like SAS. Powerful Tools, Rapid Responses Short for Statistical Analysis System, SAS (pronounced sass) is a set of integrated software tools that help decision makers cope with unwieldy amounts of unrelated data. “It is a very powerful tool,” says Mu Hu, director of customer relationship management for Golfsmith. “I can pretty much do anything with SAS.”

At its core is Base SAS—a set of analyzing, reporting, and data output tools that compile and present information stored in tables or databases. Base SAS can interpret data from almost any source—like spreadsheets, sales records, or annual reports—so that non-programmers can make business decisions based on that information.

Companies can couple Base SAS with more than two hundred specialized software tools intended for specifi c applications or industries. Examples include tools for supply chain analysis, K–12 teacher evaluation, and anti-money laundering.

SAS is the primary product of the SAS Institute, the self-described “leader in business analytics software.” While SAS is its primary product, the company has developed a peripheral business around supporting and training SAS users. Anthony J. Barr wrote the fi rst version of SAS in 1966, incorporating the SAS Institute in 1976 with cocontributors James Goodnight, John Sall,

and Jane T. Helwig. Since then, with Goodnight at the helm, it’s gained an impressive roster of clients: 92 of the top 100 Fortune Global 500 companies, more than 45,000 businesses, universities, and government agencies, with customers in 121 diff erent countries.

A New Way of Making Old Decisions To understand the success of SAS, you must fi rst grasp the concept of business analytics. According to Michael J. Beller and Alan Barnett, business analytics is the “continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning.” It chiefl y focuses on “developing new insights and understanding of business performance based on data and statistical methods.” Business analytics help an organization’s leaders and researchers understand why something is happening, what might happen next, what will happen if trends continue, and what the optimum result or decision might be. …………….