OR - The application of analytical techniques to solve business problems.
Does OR deliver real benefits? Our clients think so! We have a long and successful track record and over 200 single-page downloadable success stories and demonstration models that demonstrate the benefits delivered to our clients.
Our Operational Research solutions are grouped into three services:
Operational Research
Modern businesses and the marketplaces they operate in are becoming both more complex and competitive. As a result it is becoming increasingly difficult to make the right decisions, to select the best options or to gain a crucial advantage over competitors. Our team of Operational Research (OR) professionals is dedicated to helping clients make better informed decisions by applying modelling, quantitative analysis, objectivity and rigour to minimise risk and uncertainty.
Within Capgemini we define OR as the “The application of analytical techniques to solve business problems”.
Our Services
The core of the OR approach is the ability to abstract a model of the real world problem that is reasonably easy to use but which is sufficiently realistic to support robust decision making. These models are used to provide insight, and quantify the risks and benefits associated with solutions to complex business problems. Our services fall into three categories:
- Benefits Analysis & Delivery
- Business Analytics
- Interactive Insight
Click on Solutions to learn more about how we apply them to solve business issues for our clients.
Our People
The strength of our people lies not only in their analytical skills, which are exceptionally strong, but also in their ability to work collaboratively with our clients to solve problems and communicate complex recommendations and findings in a user-friendly manner. After many years of business experience Capgemini’s OR group is a formidable team.
OR and you
Where might you have experienced OR? Well, take a trip to the supermarket. OR will have brought the food to the store in a cost effective manner, laid out the shelves to maximise sales, and analysed the trends in customer spending to help decide which products to promote or drop. It will even have provided the business case for deciding to open a store in the first place, as well as guiding the decision on where to locate it.
Take another everyday example, providing gas to your home. OR has forecast your demand to ensure that the gas supplies and the pipes are there to meet it, and also optimised the flow of gas through those pipes. It has calculated a pricing structure by which you will be charged, optimised the routes of the service engineers who fixed your gas leak, and developed contingency plans in case of emergencies.
There are countless other examples. (Have a look at our success stories for instance.) In our increasingly complex world there are always ways to improve performance OR can help you do it.
The History of O.R
Operational Research (OR) isn’t a fad or the latest management consultancy cure-all. It has been around since the Second World War. The “operational” in OR means pertaining to military operations, and the “research” wasn’t an academic exercise - it was an urgent search for practical solutions to operational problems. OR achieved immediate success (“making as big a contribution to the war effort as RADAR” - Len Deighton). When the war was over, OR’s founding fathers turned their attention to the problems of business and the public services, but kept the same name.
OR in business was originally defined as “a scientific method for providing executives with a quantitative basis for decisions” (Charles Kittell, 1947). At Capgemini we adopt the more general definition “the use of analytical techniques to solve business problems”.
Would you like to know more?
Click on Solutions to learn more about how we apply them to solve business issues for our clients. Does OR deliver real benefits? Our clients think so! We have a long and successful track record with 30 demonstration models and over 200 single-page downloadable success stories that demonstrate the benefits delivered to our clients.
