Predictive Analytics: The Future of Big Data
October 9, 2015
I read “Predictive Analytics Are the Future of Big Data.” Who makes this pronouncement? None other than mid tier consultants. According to the write up:
Forrester analysts … believe that predictive analytics have never been more relevant and easier to use, and offer ways for forward-thinking enterprises to succeed in competitive sectors.
Why the sudden flurry of interest in predictive analytics? Well, the answer is not far to seek, gentle reader:
Forrester has authored another blast furnace brick of insight called Forrester Wave research Big Data Predictive Analytics Solutions, Q2 2015.
What’s the future hold? I like the predictions as a service. This will be useful to those who want to compare Bing predictions with the actual winner of the Kentucky Derby.
What companies are the leaders in predictive analytics? Forrester offers some well known outfits; for example, the free-spending IBM, the acquisition minded Dell, Microsoft, Oracle, and canny SAP whose enterprise software runs on Oracle, not just HANA. (I bet you knew that.) There are some surprises; for example, Alpine, Alteryx, and Angoss. The graduate student in psychology essential SAS is singled out as a leader in predictive analytics. (I am delighted to know that SAS is not a collection of components and programming methodologies with which one can build numerical machines.) There are some outfits not on my radar because I am simply not with the Forrester program; for example, KNIME and Predixion.
But the most interesting leader in predictive analytics is FICO, which is a publicly traded outfit active in 90 countries . How fresh are FICO’s predictive methods? Pretty fresh based on the Forrester analysis. I noted this passage on the FICO Web site:
Founded in 1956, FICO introduced analytic solutions such as credit scoring that have made credit more widely available, not just in the United States but around the world. We have pioneered the development and application of critical technologies behind decision management. These include predictive analytics, business rules management and optimization. We use these technologies to help businesses improve the precision, consistency and agility of their complex, high–volume decisions.
I am okay with innovations from a company with 59 of doing math for decision management and, of course, predictive analytics. (Wasn’t that calculator and mainframe centric?)
How can you get a copy of the Forrester report and learn about the companies pioneering in the predictive analytics sector? Due to the ominous legal verbiage on my copy of the high value mid tier report, I did not make a list of the companies nor hint at the wealth of insights the mid tier experts captured in the report. For me to get a copy, I clicked this link and the document became available. For you? I am not sure.
Were any companies omitted from the report. Yep, most of the firms I monitor. I am okay with Microsoft and the other big names, but there are some innovators chugging along but off the radar of the mid tier wizards in the mid tier consulting company.
If a company is not on the radar of a mid tier consulting firm, those companies are essentially irrelevant. I wonder if anyone from a mid tier consulting firm will share this devaluation of a certain Google and In-Q-Tel investment with the Alphabet Google thing?
This report is a marketing play. I hope many Fortune 50 companies turn to Forrester to guidance in predictive analytics. If I were a betting person, I would take the FanDuel-type and DraftKings-type approach to certainty. Oh, I just asked myself, “Maybe this is how the mid tier consulting reports already work?” Interesting question.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2015
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