When talking to companies who have yet to invest in predictive analytics I am often asked if I am sure that they will benefit. Will it be worth the time and effort involved in setting up a predictive analytics project? What kinds of benefits can they realistically expect? Are they large enough to reap the …
Predictive analytics – five ways your business can benefit Read More »
After basic significance tests, T-tests, Z-tests and so on, key drivers analysis (KDA) is probably the second most popular statistically-based technique in market research. Given an outcome of interest a KDA gives us a measure of the relative importance of a set of attributes (potential drivers).Typical outcomes of interest in research are: Satisfaction – customer, employee etc. Purchase intent – how …
What do your customers care about most? Using key driver analysis to find out. Read More »
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 …
In my last post I gave a brief overview of the new Python-based scripting available in Modeler 16. In this post, I will cover Modeler 16 scripting in a little more detail. This assumes some familiarity with Python such as the Python module mechanism and exception handling. There are three types of script in Modeler: …
Modeler scripts are used to automate the creation of streams, construction and configuration of nodes, stream execution and managing the execution results such as saving models to file or a content repository. A major new feature in Modeler 16 is the introduction of Python as the default scripting language. Python replaces the original bespoke language Modeler …
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 »
Organisations hold information, lots of it. Often it’s all over the place and sometimes its not acknowledged as being useful but there is always lots of data from customer interaction and transaction information to production line or stocking information. The trick is learning how to use past data to do better in the future. Organisations …
Using predictive analytics and the tax inspector’s nose to spot fraud Read More »
What is a data scientist? The predictive analytics field seems to love nothing more than giving a new name to an established concept. In my last post I argued that the concept of ‘big data’ itself is nothing new. Over the last few years I’ve seen more and more job ads recruiting ‘data scientists’ and I find myself rather unjustifiably irritated …
Do you have to be a data scientist to do predictive analytics? Read More »
I talked in my last blog post about the confusion that often emerges around how much data is enough to effectively deploy predictive analytics. I argued that sample selection is much more important than sample size when it comes to ensuring accurate results. As an example I talked about two political polls from the 1936 …
Predictive analytics – what can you do with your results? 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 »
Predictive analytics can really pay dividends for charities but I often find that such organisations are reluctant to invest in it or unsure of what value it can really bring. Smart Vision Europe has worked with quite a number of charities with the aim of helping them benefit from the power of predictive analytics. Over …
Why should charities invest in in-house predictive analytics? 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 …
Moving beyond RFM analysis to create truly data-driven customer segments RFM stands for recency, frequency, monetary value and is a method for calculating or assessing overall customer value. Its most common use is in direct marketing or database marketing and it is particularly heavily used by retailers and charities. RFM analysis is predicated on the …
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 »
While reading Jared Diamond’s excellent book on the rise and subsequent global dominance of Eurasian societies Guns, Germs and Steel, I was stopped in my tracks by his chapter on the evolution of technology entitled Necessity’s Mother. Diamond briskly demolishes the commonly-held view that necessity is the mother of invention. In fact he argues that many …
Why not now? The barriers to adopting true predictive analytics. Read More »
Real time advertising is a hot topic right now. Over the last few months I’ve read a growing number of articles about how advertisers will soon be able to target their customers in real-time. Of course real-time advertising is nothing new online, what’s new here is the possibility of being able to do it in …
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 …
IBM SPSS Modeler has been through quite the name changes since it first came onto the market as Clementine in the 1990s. In 1998 it was acquired by SPSS. Controversially, in my mind, SPSS then changed its name to SPSS Modeler (spelled the American way which causes no end of confusion in spell checks or when …
IBM SPSS Modeler – 8 reasons why it is still brilliant after all these years Read More »
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 …
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 …
Deployment of analytics – a great example of the Anna Karenina principle? Read More »
People often think of predictive analytics as something that’s primarily useful for commercial organisations or is too expensive for charities to make use of, but this really isn’t the case. At Smart Vision we work with a wide range of charitable organisations, many of whom are using SPSS Statistics or SPSS Modeler software for data …
How charities can make better use of predictive analytics Read More »
It’s common to hear claims about how businesses will be transformed through the use of predictive analytics techniques with surprising and shock results that they never would have imagined to be the case. It’s particularly common for product or service vendors to make these kinds of claims when in pursuit of a possible sale. After …
Are the results of predictive analytics really that surprising? Read More »
I’ve worked in predictive analytics for many years and have seen that a key factor for increasing the prospects of a project being successful is using a structured approach based around a data mining methodology such as CRISP-DM (a quick declaration of interest here – I was one of the team who originally developed the …
How the CRISP-DM method can help your data mining project succeed Read More »
During a recent trawl of my archives I happened across an article from DM Review, now Information Management, first published back in 2000. The topic: Top Ten Data Mining Business Questions. This was back in the days before the term predictive analytics was common parlance but I read through the list and wondered – have …
I speak to a lot of people in organisations just starting out on their analytics journey, organisations that have started to recognise that they could make better decisions if they could find the hidden patterns and nuggets of information in their data. Data talks and you can tell very quickly if it has something interesting …
The first step in predictive analytics – understanding your data Read More »
In my last blog post I talked about how it’s now possible to automate large parts of your predictive analytics projects, removing the need to get stuck into the complex statistics yourself. In this post I’ll suggest some ways to maximise the chances of your predictive analytics projects being successful. 1. Use a proven analytics …
6 ways to increase the value of your predictive analytics project Read More »
What do you think of when you hear phrases like predictive analytics, data mining or machine learning? For many people these terms sound suspiciously like ‘statistics on steroids’ and unfortunately, even in the more data-centric and numerate industries, that isn’t likely to elicit the most enthusiastic of responses. To be fair that’s hardly surprising, as …
Getting started with advanced analytics – advice for analytics virgins Read More »
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 »
