In addition to the new IBM Netezza High Capacity Appliance, IBM also recently introduced new predictive analytics software designed to automatically correlate and analyze big data to help clients embed intelligence consistently into every business decision. IBM says the new software geneates insights on internal data more quickly, and also measures the impact of social networking channels and factors this information into organizational decision making. The decision management capabilities can be used to improve the way organizations gain, share and take action based on information gathered as part of business processes such as marketing, claims processing, and fraud detection.
The idea behind the Analytical Decision Management software, part of a series of IBM Smarter Analytics initiatives, is two-fold, Erick Brethenoux, IBM executive program director of worldwide analytics and decision management strategy, tells 5 Minute Briefing. “The first is to allow organizations to really align strategy and operations. The decision management product will allow organizations to align their decisions from the strategy all the way to the operational level, so every call center operator is doing their job having in mind the policy and strategy the company has put in place.” This is a significant change from what IBM is seeing today where decisions are frequently disconnected within an organization, notes Brethenoux. The second key aspect to the new software is that it allows organizations to consistently formalize the decisions points with rules and knowledge that the organization has and to put that into a single decision service that can be reused across the organization in a coherent manner, says Brethenoux.
In a single platform, IBM has combined power of business rules, predictive analytics and optimization techniques, through intuitive interfaces that allow users to focus on specific business problems. The resulting decision can be consumed by existing pre-packaged or custom built applications, including many applications on the mainframe. The platform also takes advantage of IBM InfoSphere Streams technology where big data can be analyzed and shared in motion, providing real-time decision making in environments where thousands of decisions can be made every second. The Analytical Decision Management software is also being made available as a SaaS offering, Brethenoux points out.
IBM is also extending the analytical functionality of its newest Entity Analytic capabilities. Previously geared towards sophisticated organizations and projects, the technology is now being made available for the first time to business users at all levels as part of this new Decision Management Platform. This feature, which IBM says is particularly well suited for big data environments, is an analytics engine that enables identity matching, pinpointing and connecting relationships between all entities - people, places, or things, making systems smarter as more information becomes available. The IBM Entity Analytic capabilities are context-based and accumulate knowledge, resulting in a more accurate picture, better models, and better outcomes. This ability to understand how the data relates delivers higher quality models and helps to ultimately produce smarter decisions.
For more information about Analytical Decision Management, go to www- 142.ibm.com/software/products/us/en/subcategory/SWQ60.