WHY PROMOTE OPERATIONS RESEARCH?

The good news:

"What's the proven benefit of operations research? For us, it's efficient: spend $2.5 million to get $700 million."

-Business unit president, $4.5 billion company

The bad news:

"At the risk of sounding really stupid... I didn't even know what operations research meant. Now does that sound silly?"

-CIO, $5 billion company

There has never been a bigger opportunity for operations research to deliver premium value to the world's organizations. But if the people who need O.R. don't know what it is or understand its potential, it will remain, as a leading academic has called it, "the world's most important invisible profession." Worse yet, O.R. will disappear from organizations, lose ground to other disciplines, and fall out of academic curricula.

Take Action Right Here, Right Now
The fact is, most O.R. professionals are analysts, not sales people. We need to transcend ourselves and take advantage of basic sales techniques and marketing tools. To get you started, INFORMS has put together this online toolkit. Use it to:

• Explain O.R. clearly and consistently, in language your audience understands
• Show the value O.R. can deliver with relevant success stories
• Sell O.R. with tools tailored for academics and internal/external practitioners
• Find more resources like colleagues, discussion groups, and vendors

INFORMS is also launching a powerful marketing and public relations campaign. But nothing can compare with the power you have to promote operations research to your clients, managers, and administrators. Use that power now.