Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

Chapter 10

Effective Predictive Analytics

What Works and What Does Not

“If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we’ll turn out all right.”

—Jeff Bezos

In today’s era of overwhelming data and with the explosion of new digital information, companies are facing new business challenges and opportunities from all directions. Customers are more technology savvy and are using social media, the Web, mobile apps, and other new media to compare products and services and to get and provide feedback regarding their purchases. They are digitally connected and can get information about your product, services, and brand without reaching out to your organization directly.

According to an article published in the Economist, the world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information that is increasing at an ever more rapid pace.1 This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done: spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime, and so on. Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science, and hold governments to account. However, data are also creating a host of new problems. Despite the abundance of tools to capture, process, and share all of this information—sensors, computers, mobile phones, and the like—it already exceeds the available storage space. Moreover, ensuring data security and protecting privacy are becoming harder as the information ...