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Adobe Analytics Challenge Gives Students Experience in Data-Driven Problem Solving

Lehi—It’s no wonder that 1,500 students from universities across the U.S.—including right here in Utah—applied to be part of the Adobe Analytics Challenge. The challenge, now in its 12th year, offers a golden opportunity to statistics- and analytics-loving students looking to get a leg up in their careers: that of working with real-world data, solving a problem for a real-world, big-name company, and for a chance at $60,000 in cash and prizes.

The students were given two weeks to learn how to use Adobe’s analytics software, given a real-world data set from one of Adobe’s customer partners—this year, MGM—and then asked to comb through the data to give MGM business or marketing recommendations based on their data findings. On Friday, the six remaining finalist teams presented their recommendations to a panel of judges at Adobe’s headquarters in Lehi. The finalist teams represented NYU, BYU Idaho, the University of Utah, BYU, UT Dallas and the University of Michigan, with the University of Michigan team taking the top prize of $35,000.

“It’s really exciting because I’ve never used Adobe analytics before,” said Rei Liao, a member of the winning team. “We go to business school and we’ve always learned about historical businesses, but it’s exciting to help the business in the real world and make an impact.”

The three-person University of Michigan team focused their recommendations on MGM’s mobile platform and website.

“We analyzed the mobile platform and the website in order to see how we can better serve MGM’s customers, discover new guests, and help them to develop their promotion strategies,” said Liao. “So basically, we just dug into the data right away to see what kind of resources can impact the business the most.”

The ability to offer MGM insights and gain audience with the hospitality giant thrilled not just the winning team, but local teams, as well. “This has been the most rewarding experience in terms of getting real-world experience, seeing how data applies to businesses and what they’re looking for,” said University of Utah student Stephen Sainsbury, whose team came in No. 4 and won $3,000. “It’s been an awesome way to get to network and see some important individuals and show them how one day we might contribute.”

None of the student teams have any experience working with Adobe’s analytics software, and were given a two-hour live training session that University of Utah teammate Rodrigo Perez described as ample.

“We had a two-hour training and that was enough to kick us into the software,” he said. “You can learn PowerPoint in two hours, but you don’t expect that for a software that can go so deep with the data. It’s amazing.”

After that, the students were on their own to comb through the data and come up with their own findings. For companies like Adobe and MGM, seeing that kind of innovation at work is especially important for future recruitment. McKinsey Analytics projects that by next year, 60 percent of data science jobs may go unfilled due to workforce shortage issues. Adobe hopes their challenge can introduce data analytics to students in a way that excites them and spurs them into the field.

“For us, it’s a phenomenal experience in a couple of ways. We use it as a recruiting tool,” said Nate Smith, senior manager of product marketing for Adobe Analytics Cloud. Smith, who came out of the Adobe Analytics Challenge himself, has a leadership role in the challenge now. “For Adobe, we find great talent to bring into the company. MGM has the opportunity to find great talent to bring into its company. As you look at what’s going out in the market today, businesses need a lot of insight, a lot of data-driven insight and decision-making. There are plenty of tools, there’s plenty of tech, right, but there’s not enough people to fill that gap. We’re incentivized to fill that pipeline.”

It seems to have worked for the winning University of Michigan team. Rajiv Khattar, another member of the winning team, said, “For me, personally, I’ve never touched marketing analytics in the past. My background isn’t in marketing. My interest in this is purely ‘can we use data to tell stories?’—and this is truly a competition about that.”