The Inaugural Hurwitz & Associates Predictive Analytics Victory Index is complete!

For more years than I like to admit, I have been focused on the importance of managing data so that it helps companies anticipate changes and therefore be prepared to take proactive action. Therefore, as I watched the market for predictive analytics really emerge I thought it was important to provide customers with a holistic [...]

Five Analytics Predictions for 2011

In 2011 analytics will take center stage as a key trend because companies are at a tipping point with the volume of data they have and their urgent need to do something about it. So, with 2010 now past and 2011 to look forward to, I wanted to take the opportunity to submit my predictions [...]

SAS and the Business Analytics Innovation Centre

Last Friday, SAS announced that it was partnering with Teradata and Elder Research Inc. (a data mining consultancy) to open a Business Analytics Innovation Centre.  According to the press release, “ Recognising the growing need and challenges businesses face driving operational analytics across enterprises, SAS and Teradata are planning to establish a centralised “think tank” [...]

IBM Business Analytics and Optimization – The Dawn of New Era

I attended the IBM Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO) briefing yesterday at the IBM Research facility in Hawthorne, NY.   At the meeting, IBM executives from Software, Global Business Services, and Research (yes, Research) announced its new consulting organization, which will be led by Fred Balboni.   The initiative includes 4000 GBS consultants working together with the [...]

Four Questions about Innovations in Analysis

Several weeks ago, Hurwitz & Associates deployed a short survey entitled, “Four questions about innovations in analysis”.  Well, the results and they are quite interesting!   THE SURVEY   First, a few words about the survey itself and who responded to the survey.   We wanted to make the survey short and sweet.  We were [...]

Decisions and Consequences

Not everything is easy.  I analyzed data for decision-making for many years using advanced techniques such as predictive modeling, machine learning and even influence diagrams.  With the rush to pervasive BI we often forget about the need for truly sophisticated analysis to aid in complex decision making.    I’m talking about decision support for critical strategic [...]

Seven guiding principles for analyzing data

I was talking to an old friend the other day who is involved in using the results of research to help grow a business. He told me some interesting stories that made me revisit some basic tenets of good analysis. Yes, you may think that some of these are obvious, but they still bear repeating. [...]

MDM without boiling the ocean

I was thinking about Master Data Management (MDM) last night. There’s been a lot of hype over the past few years about MDM. At its simplest level, MDM is about handling common data, such as customer or product data, in a way that enables disparate IT systems and business groups to reuse the data. The [...]