My husband and I were out to lunch at our local seafood restaurant the other day. I overheard the conversation at the table next to me – 2 guys talking about Predictive Analytics! WOW! Predictive Analytics is finally lunchtime conversation!
I heard them talk about the businesses collecting massive amounts of “Big Data.” And how “Correlation Engines” and “Predictive Analytics” could sift through this data to find interesting patterns that could be leveraged. I also heard mention of Data Scientists, HADOOP, and programming in Mahout.
“Yikes!” I thought “These guys make Predictive Analytics sound like something that mere mortals would never be able to do!”
I overheard the younger guy give an example of a very sophisticated government intelligence use case and said to the older guy, “Is that Predictive Analytics?” The older guy said “Yes!”
I wanted to interrupt them; but I was at lunch with my husband and he doesn’t appreciate me starting conversations with strangers.
So, I sat there thinking, “Predictive Analytics doesn’t need to overly complex or scary AND it doesn’t require “Big Data”.” Really, it is about identifying a business problem in your organization where anticipating future patterns or trends based on historical will give your business a better outcome. It can be as simple as:
- Who are my best prospects? Based on who I have sold to in the past.
- What offers should I send which customers? Based on which customer took which offers in the past.
- How much money will a given customer spend with me next year? Based on the characteristics of this customer to other customers.
- How much of a product will sell next week, month, and year? Based on how much has sold in the past of that item or similar items.
- Which claims/procurement are likely to be fraudulent? Based prior history of known fraud and identification on unusual activities.
Sure, there is a bit of wizardry to put it all together. Our QueBIT Predictive Analytics Experts can help with that, just like we have worked with hundreds of businesses over a wide range of industries.
