With less than a year to go until it comes into effect, organisations are really starting to get to grips with what GDPR will mean in practice. We’ve talked to lots of customers who are concerned about the implications that GDPR might have for the way in which they collect and analyse customer data. Much …
I’ve blogged several times now about different aspects of data science. A conversation I’ve been having more and more frequently now is about what tools people should learn if they’re hoping to develop a career in data science. Obviously there are many different factors to be taken into account here. You’ll want to think about …
Data science is everywhere at the moment. Nearly as everywhere as big data, but not quite. Books out there are making the concepts behind statistics and predictive analytics more and more accessible not only to those in business making decisions everyday but also to the average man or woman on the street. Try Super Crunchers …
Data science is everywhere, so why no data scientists to be seen? Read More »
The concept of the net promoter score was introduced to the world in Frederick Reichheld’s seminal Harvard Business Review article The One Number You Need to Grow in 2003. Reichheld’s research led him to believe that there was a deep and intrinsic link between profitable growth and customer loyalty. Two years of research revealed that, for most industries, …
Understanding what drives your net promoter score – how data science can help Read More »
Data science is on the rise. A couple of years back Harvard Business Review suggested that ‘data scientist’ is the sexiest job title of the twenty first century and the hype around data science shows no sign of abating. The term ‘data scientist’ itself was only coined in 2008 but since then the number of data …
Data science projects – what skills do you need and where can you get them from? Read More »
An analytical tool for the business user. It isn’t a new idea, more a nut that many of us have been trying to crack for years. Today, of course, this problem is more pressing than ever. There are more questions that can be answered with analytics, more data to analyse and fewer trained analysts to …
Data visualisation is a hot topic at the moment. And with good reason: a picture paints a thousand words … and the better ones can convey clearer meaning than a similar volume of numbers. There is also an ever-growing list of charts and infographics, both in the public domain and in research deliverables. They are not totally new …
The past decade has seen huge growth in the practical use of data mining and analytics. Increasingly, analytics is being used not just to inform decision makers; it is being embedded into operational systems and processes. As analytics becomes increasingly business critical, I share a few thoughts on the question: is it time for the …
Is there a business case for the Chief Analytics Officer? Read More »
When I’m talking to prospective clients something I hear a lot is ‘but we don’t really have enough data to do any data mining’. It’s a common misconception that you need vast terabytes of data to be able to do anything meaningful in terms of analytics. In fact there are a number of similar misconceptions …
Predictive analytics – how much data do you really need? Read More »
It never ceases to surprise me at the wide array of interesting and smart folks we have the privilege to meet through the course of our work at Smart Vision Europe. We are two months into 2014 and I have been checking back on my diary to make sure there are no loose ends. I’m …
Predictive analytics: how small improvements can deliver big results Read More »
Big data is everywhere at the moment. There’s a lot of talk about it, much of which presents big data as a problem to be solved rather than as an opportunity to be seized. There are many organisations that could be using big data for powerful predictive analytics but aren’t, because they’ve bought into one …
When I’m talking to prospective clients, one of the questions I’m regularly asked is why they should invest in expensive predictive analytics software when they already have Excel. Excel has some useful features and for many organisations it can be a useful toe in the water of analytics but it’s really not built for the …
Do you really need special software for predictive analytics? Read More »
Predictive analytics uses statistical techniques and mathematical algorithms to analyse existing data and extrapolate it forward to predict what’s likely to happen in the future. Which customers are most likely to cancel their contracts? Which ad campaign will people most likely respond to? Which insurance claims are most likely to be fraudulent? On which assets should …
There’s been a fair amount of discussion recently as to whether or not the whole big data analytics agenda has entered the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’ yet. The reality is that for many of us working in the advanced analytics arena, discussion of big data disappeared into the ‘Valley of Please-God-No-More’ some time ago. By that …
