Exploring business problems and opportunities so that new business solutions can be identified

• What in house modelling capability do we need? – Review of OR services
• Be prepared! – Cost of readiness
• Experiment – Assess the scale of use of CBRN weapons
• Work together – Framework development for maritime training interoperability

Gaining insights from data and discovering opportunities from those insights

• Supermarket demand forecasting from weather data
• Which hospitals are the best? – League tables for health service providers
• Who’s not paying the right amount of tax? – Risk management systems
• How much are we wasting? – Analysing the first national waste survey
• Understanding trends and patterns – Statistical analysis of examination results
• Forecasting system – Visa and immigration applications

Understand the effects of changes to their business and the business environment, and thus make robust plans in the face of uncertainty

• How much capital do we need? – Modelling ECGD’s financial performance
• What pay structure is best? – Reward management and pay modelling
• Developing a business case – Improved weather forecasting

Improving business performance and building the capability to keep improving themselves

• Identifying costs and value in business processes
• Implementing a performance management system at a charity
• Improving staff rostering
• Matching volunteers to charities

Making the best decisions in complex circumstances, where there is a need to justify the decision, defend it against challenges, and to ensure the quality of the decision making process

• “It’s obvious …” – What happens if experts and decision makers disagree?
• Forestalling a legal challenge – Rigour and auditablity in tender evaluation
• Managing risk and ensuring sustainability
• Planning – Capturing qualitative factors