Buffalo, NY - Everyone in the 716-area code knows that Buffalo Bills fans are among the most loyal in the National Football League. Alyssa J. Mancuso ’22, MS ’23 is one of them. She’s also a key player on the team that drives fan retention and helps win new ones.
The Rochester native is a customer relationship management (CRM) administrator for the Buffalo Bills organization. It’s a big job in the big leagues, as CRM is fast becoming a modern-day game changer – not just for professional sports teams but for businesses of all scopes and sizes.
CRM is a software platform used to collect and measure customer data and trends, which companies then use to develop effective, engaging and enduring customer relationships. It’s Mancuso’s job to analyze and interpret CRM data and make recommendations based on her findings.
“I am generally responsible for an abundance of data on a daily basis,” says Mancuso, who manages the CRM database for season ticket sales and sponsorship deals, and the revenue involved with all of that. Her responsibilities recently shifted, when news broke that the Buffalo Bills would break ground on a new $1.5 billion stadium. “Currently, my work involves analyzing inventory for our sponsors in the new stadium and helping to determine what inventory will be made available to them.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field of business analytics is expected to grow exponentially through 2029, making a higher education degree in the area among the most valuable resources of the 21st century.
Mancuso was first introduced to the field as an undergraduate at Canisius University.
She studied finance and accounting systems and analytics, which marries accounting concepts with state-of-the-art CRM technology. Mancuso narrowed her academic focus as a graduate student in the business analytics program. The interdisciplinary degree merges the disciplines of data analytics and business. In this program, Mancuso utilized Systems Applications and Products (SAP) software to learn “how to interpret the story behind the numbers,” “develop strategic insights” and then “communicate recommendations based on the data-driven findings.”
She honed her skills during an internship in the Business Development Department of Pegula Sports and Entertainment (PSE), which owned the Buffalo Bills (NFL), the Buffalo Sabres (NHL) and the Buffalo Bandits (NLL). Mancuso managed sponsorship data and industry category research and analysis.
She must have made an impression because PSE offered Mancuso a full-time position upon graduation.
“I am so grateful for the education I received in my five years … and the amazing professors who guided my academic journey,” Mancuso says. “I learned so much and really grew as a person.”
Her Canisius experience was “all the more special,” she notes, because she was able to tailor her field of study to her interest in sports.
Now, Mancuso writes on her social media channel, she’s “Just a girl living her dream working in sports.”
That’s a “W” in our book.
