Berni Simmons

Berni is the founding Director of Smart Vision Europe and led the business through its start-up phase to its current position as an accredited premier IBM business partner. He has over twenty years experience of predictive analytics, data mining, business intelligence and market research.

Key driver analysis – adding value to SPSS core functionality with additional capabilities

Smart Vision Europe has a decades long track record of working with the IBM SPSS software suite. Over this time, we have worked with many clients across a range of industry sectors and with diverse use cases and requirements. There is one remarkably consistent use case application. We see it time and again. Hundreds of …

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How SPSS can make tenant satisfaction surveys easier for social housing providers

For more than a decade we have been helping social housing providers gain insight and understanding into how their tenants think they are performing by helping make it easier for them to analyse both their primary research data (usually collected from tenant satisfaction surveys) and other operational data. The matching and joining of tenant research …

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Why SPSS is a much better choice than Excel for data analytics

The volume and nature of the data that most organisations hold these days mean that the analytical possibilities are great. Organisations are constantly seeking ways to extract valuable insights from their data to gain a competitive edge, using advanced analytics to help them make data driven decisions. However, as with everything, it’s really important to …

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What is the difference between data science and machine learning?

While data science and machine learning are related, they are very different fields. In a nutshell, data science brings structure to big data while machine learning focuses on learning from the data itself. This post will dive deeper into the nuances of each field. What is data science? Data science is a broad, multidisciplinary field that extracts value from today’s …

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Key analytics trends for 2023 and how they will affect your business

Data and analytics are becoming ever more central to businesses and their operations. The growth of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning means that advanced analytics plays an ever-growing role in traditionally data-heavy businesses, from retail and heathcare to finance and ecommerce. How is this likely to develop further in 2023? In this blog …

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Resources to help you accelerate your data analysis with SPSS

IBM SPSS Statistics provides a powerful suite of data analytics tools which allows you to quickly analyze your data with a simple point-and-click interface and enables you to extract critical insights with ease. During these times of rapid change that demand agility, it is imperative to embrace data driven decision-making to improve business outcomes. Organisations …

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Announcing Smart Vision’s new business partner relationship with Data Robot

At Smart Vision Europe we have many years of experience helping our customers successfully get started with applying and getting value from data science, AI and machine learning. We have set up and delivered numerous successful data science programmes across a range of industries as well as in the public sector. Under the collective banner …

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What skills are needed to successfully run data science projects in the cloud?

In my most recent blog post I wrote about the benefits and opportunities that cloud computing brings to data science projects and reciprocally, how data science projects provide a great way to demonstrate the value of cloud computing. In this post I want to discuss the cloud computing skills challenge and provide some advice on …

What skills are needed to successfully run data science projects in the cloud? Read More »

turned-on flat screen monitor

Why data science presents the best use cases for cloud computing

We are living through a golden age of technological innovation and revolution. Whether it’s the blending of real time data, technical software and hardware instrumentation to deliver efficient, user friendly and zero carbon buildings or the combination of data, artificial intelligence algorithms and automotive technology to enable semi-autonomous vehicles, we are witnessing rapid expansion of …

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How COVID-19 is changing the nature of advanced analytics

How COVID-19 is changing the nature of advanced analytics We’re over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic now and it seems that everyone is an amateur statistics expert. Concepts like the R number, exponential growth and, most recently, probability and assessment of risk that used to be really only for discussion amongst epidemiologists and statisticians …

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How can a data scientist access training in 2021? 3 trends things to look out for…

How can a data scientist access training in 2021? 3 trends things to look out for… I have been involved in the delivery and implementation of data science software applications, data science projects and solutions that have advanced and predictive analytics at their core, in one form or another, for almost 30 years. Of course, …

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The type of spreadsheet error that caused the loss of 16,000 coronavirus test results in England isn’t unusual – the limitations of spreadsheets are well known

Spreadsheets have been much in the news over the last couple of days in the UK, and not for good reasons. It looks as though Excel’s limit on the number of rows of data possible in a spreadsheet has led to Public Health England misplacing more than 16,000 Covid test results. The implications of this …

The type of spreadsheet error that caused the loss of 16,000 coronavirus test results in England isn’t unusual – the limitations of spreadsheets are well known Read More »

5 key trends affecting technical training provision in predictive analytics

I have been in the business of delivering software applications and solutions that have advanced and predictive analytics at their core, in one form or another, for last 25 years. In a recent conversation with colleagues we were discussing how the wider market has changed and, more specifically, how this has affected the way that …

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Why R can be hard to learn

Many of the analysts we speak to are being pushed over to R, primarily because it’s open source and therefore a free alternative to commercial data analytics packages for which the costs can sometimes run into tens of thousands of pounds (or more). However, even experienced analysts often find that getting to grips with R …

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How repeatable application templates will maximise the effectiveness of your first predictive analytics project

As we help our clients get up and running with the predictive analytics tools and skills they need, we see some trends emerging in terms of the kind of applications for which clients tend to use predictive analytics most commonly. These are what we call ‘repeatable application templates’. In my previous post I outlined the 4 …

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Four reasons why getting started with predictive analytics is simpler than you think

We spend a great deal of our time at Smart Vision helping our clients to establish the use of predictive analytics in their business. For many organisations, getting started with predictive analytics can feel like a real departure from more traditional and familiar areas of activity. That said, organisations in almost every industry sector are becoming …

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10 reasons why your organisation is ready for prescriptive analytics

Prescriptive analytics is a relatively recent development beyond the broader disciplines of predictive analytics and data science. In this blog post I want to explain a bit about what it is and discuss why I think many organisations are already on the road to using it, without even knowing it. Prescriptive analytics is the third …

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How can predictive analytics help retailers weather the economic storm?

In this blog post I’m going to suggest  some ways in which predictive analytics can help retailers weather the economic storm they’re currently facing. The UK’s battered retail sector has been enduring an ongoing perfect storm following the financial crisis of 2007 / 2008.  The government would like us to believe that things are much better …

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Deployment of analytics – a great example of the Anna Karenina principle?

The Anna Karenina principle describes an endeavour in which a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms it to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavour (subject to this principle) is one where every possible deficiency has been avoided. The name of the principle derives from Leo Tolstoy's book Anna Karenina, which begins “Happy …

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Could predictive analytics be the answer to Network Rail’s maintenance problems?

I read with interest, a little dismay and a dash of sympathy the recent news about the problems Network Rail is facing with customer delays. I’m a regular user of the UK railway network and the experience can be frustrating, especially when caught up in delays and disruption. However as a business owner myself I’m also sympathetic to …

Could predictive analytics be the answer to Network Rail’s maintenance problems? Read More »

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