>> My name is Loren Allison.
I work at IBM.
And so most people think of IBM as mainframes.
But what I do is I work in their software group.
And I do finance for their software group.
So software group is just one section of IBM where they sell lots
of different software group products.
So I specifically focus on business analytics.
Where we help other companies look at all their different numbers,
and kind of consolidate them into something that's viewable.
Where they can do analytics on it, and a lot of analysis to see how their company's performing.
Whether it's, you know, doing well.
Or if it's declining.
Try to figure out why it's declining.
So my products specifically are focused on helping financial companies.
So my job really deals with a lot of reporting numbers.
Forecasting and planning.
So today I'm working on our plan for next year.
So what that means is I take our -- my products, and I plan what the revenue --
I think it should be, using you know, analytics.
Sort of metrics.
Some people would call it -- I also do forecasting.
Sort of to predict the next quarter's revenue and expenses.
So that I can give the executive headlights into what's going to happen
in the future so we could plan for that.
If I think, you know, something -- we have a lot less head count.
Less people; sales people, I'll forecast less revenue sort
of to help them plan for expenses and what not.
So those are the three main things that I do in my job.
So in a daily basis, a lot of requests come in for analysis.
And I'm always monthly and quarterly reporting.
So --