Chan Shu Ling, Marketing Lead, Singapore, SAS
By Nurfilzah Rohaidi
Women in GovTech Special Report 2017.
I lead Marketing for Singapore at SAS. A large part of my role looks at defining integrated communication journeys to excite and engage our customers, and new ways of how we bring SAS to life across various audiences.
What has been the most exciting thing that you worked on in 2017?
As an analytics company, it is of little surprise that we are highly analytical ourselves. And as a marketer, it excites me not only to create campaigns, but be also able to measure efforts and track results. Our marketing and campaign management tools and systems are built in-house with SAS solutions – from data integration, campaign automation to data visualisation.
Being able to closely monitor and track what works and what doesn’t gives me insights into how our customers and consumers of our efforts react. I am able to better make informed decisions on marketing investments across digital media platforms, events, targeting and messages.
What tool or technique particularly interests you for 2018?
We have a very broad suite of analytics solutions for various industries and business challenges. Our fraud detection solutions are not only used in the financial industries for anti-money laundering and trade fraud detection, we also help customers in various government agencies with security intelligence and counter-terrorism initiatives.
Beyond our solutions, analytical tools or techniques, what really amazes me is the depth of knowledge our domain experts have across various industries and topics. Most recently, I got to meet our Fraud and Security Intelligence experts – both previously from global intelligence agencies and renowned police forces – and had the opportunity to hear first-hand their on-ground counter-terrorism approaches and experiences.
Without the domain experts to provide advice and the right recommendations, solutions will only remain just as tools.
If you were to share one piece of advice that you learned in 2017, what would it be?
One piece of advice I would share is to remain focused and go back to the objectives/goals you had set out to achieve. Marketing our large portfolio of solutions often meant the need to manage initiatives across various channels, targeting different audiences and most often, all at the same time. For example, the government sector is made of very diverse audiences. We could be creating content and running activities on tax fraud, analytics architecture to citizen engagement intelligence, all in the same week. It is important to pause, take a step back and evaluate if your initiatives still meet the objectives and goals.
What was the greatest challenge that you overcame in 2017?
Not technically trained meant more time and effort required to understand how our advanced analytical tools and solutions work. And as a marketer, it is very important to have a good understanding of what and how we represent our capabilities to our customers accurately. In addition to attending various product webinars and internal online training courses, finding the time and initiative to speak with the technical experts within our company was key to enhancing my knowledge.
What book did you read in 2017 that most interested or inspired you?
Richard Branson’s The Virgin Way was filled with anecdotes and perspectives on leadership and how to inspire and be inspired at the workplace. The messages around listening, saying less and contributing more resonates with me.
Who inspired you in 2017, and why?
Whether it’s the relentless attitudes of our customer and technical support staff going the extra mile when helping our customers, or creative discussions with sales and pre-sales teams in coming up with interesting use cases, the people I work and interact with inspire me every day at work. The collaborative environment at SAS often gives me fresh perspectives and ideas to test new campaigns, inspiring me to do more, and do different.
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