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Rachel Finley
574 TNRB
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 422-3598
prspecialist@byu.edu

Rollins eBusiness Center to Host Omniture Web Analytics Competition

Almost every major company in the world has a web site to market and sell its products. Few businesses, however, take the time to properly track how customers interact with the company’s web pages in an effort to make its site more user-friendly and effective. This fairly new approach to web site optimization is known as web analytics and is crucial to maximizing the profits generated through online business transactions.

Omniture, one of the world’s leading companies in the field of web analytics, has helped many high-profile businesses such as Ford, GM, Nike, eBay, CNN, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart incorporate web analytics into their web sites. Omniture’s success has forced them to always be on the lookout for new talent to help expand their company. For the past two years, the BYU Rollins Center for eBusiness has had the opportunity to partner with Omniture in this endeavor through the Omniture Web Analytics Competition.

The competition benefits both parties involved. While Omniture identifies possible future employees, the center and BYU is able to offer students a singular opportunity to become acquainted with a red hot, up-and-coming industry.

“The center has greatly profited by its relationship with Omniture,” says Jeff Brown, program manager of the eBusiness Center. “When it comes to web analytics they are one of the foremost companies in the world. To have such a dynamic relationship with a business like that means a lot to us and the students who get involved in this awesome competition.”

In October, the center and Omniture will host the competition which awards prize money to the top three teams. Omniture educates all of the teams involved on SiteCatalyst, the company’s flagship software, and then provides a customer’s web site for the teams to analyze and make short presentations to a panel of Omniture executives about their findings and suggestions.

The company, that usually charges thousands of dollars to train people on its SiteCatalyst software, has been greatly impressed by the quality of past students’ presentations.

“Each semester that Omniture has participated with the competition, we have seen more and more sophisticated entries,” says Cameron Barnes, group manager for Omniture consulting. “The teams that excelled had concise strategic assessment, deep analysis, and recommendations that included the potential positive business results.”

Steve Liddle, director of the center, appreciates the competition because of its importance in teaching vital skills for success in online ventures.

“What I like about the competition is it is right at the heart of e-business because online marketing is becoming increasingly important for businesses of all sizes,” Liddle says.