Advanced Analytics Methodologies: Driving Business Value with Analytics

9. Predictive Analytics Techniques

Overview

In this chapter, we review techniques that analysts use for predictive analytics. There are hundreds of different algorithms currently used to train predictive models; we do not claim to review these methods exhaustively but present a general description of “families” of techniques, together with an explanation of the strengths and weaknesses for each family (see Exhibit 9.1).

Exhibit 9.1 Modern Analytics Framework

Many statistical techniques are useful for both prediction and explanation. Some techniques, however, such as Mixed Linear Models, are primarily useful for explanation, where the analyst ...