At its Information On Demand conference in Rome, IBM unveiled new software to place the power of predictive analytics into the hands of business users for faster, more insightful decision making. According to the company, with three clicks, business users can now build a predictive model within a configurable Web browser interface, and run simulations and "what-if" scenarios that compare and test the best business outcomes before the model is ever deployed into an operational system. Business users now have full control over the analytic process, enabling them to make accurate decisions in real-time, based on changes in strategy, customer buying patterns and behaviors, or fluctuating market conditions.
Providing a simple way to inject predictive analytics in the business process to ensure optimal outcomes, the new software, IBM SPSS Decision Management, has simplified predictive analytics by offering a simple, "three-click" automated modeling and scoring web interface. Business users can set up data for quick and efficient modeling, select the best-performing models automatically and then get results in easy-to-interpret charts and graphs. Predictive models can be deployed in a fraction of the time it would take to build them manually. And, with the new simulation feature, business users can visually see the outcomes and do a comparison of the models and business rules, and change if necessary, before they are deployed. The solution also enhances collaboration between business users and professional analysts by providing one framework to work together seamlessly. Business users can easily design and build models based on their own business scenarios, with their expert analysts validating and refining those models to improve results.
"This new offering makes it easier for a broader set of users to access and take advantage of predictive analytics models and in fact to create and customize their own, enabling them to do what-if scenarios against the information that they have," Bernie Spang, director of database strategy and marketing at IBM, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "This is really helping to democratize analytics more so than ever before. We are going beyond analytics just in the hands of a few business analysts and mathematicians to a broader set of business users who have access to it and can use the information to make better decisions faster."
IBM is delivering two new offerings for the insurance industry, and marketing organizations within all business verticals. The first is designed to help identify fraudulent claims in the insurance industry, which accounts for approximately $30 billion in losses a year. The second manages every inbound customer and prospect interaction via call center, web, point-of-sale or email.
The new software, IBM SPSS Decision Management, combines predictive models, business rules and optimization to increase an organization's confidence to automatically deliver accurate, high-volume, high-value decisions at the appropriate point of customer interaction. "For example if you are in marketing and you want to make sure you are optimizing your investments for a particular campaign, you would want to have an understanding of which segments to target with a given offer in order to maximize the response rate and to maximize the revenue you generate," says Spang. "This capability allows you very quickly - through a browser-based interface and basically a three-click process - to set up the what-if scenarios," says Spang. "You can do those tests beforehand and make the decision and investment in a more intelligent way than ever before."
IBM SPSS Decision Management 6 is now available worldwide. Also available are two pre-packaged solutions - IBM SPSS Decision Management for Claims and IBM SPSS Decision Management for Customer Interactions. To learn more about IBM business analytics, go here.