Data Science and Predictive Analytics!

Originally published on LinkedIn · April 10, 2015

One of the most intriguing and hot topic around the world is, perhaps, you may have guessed by now. Data Science and Machine Learning techniques!

In simple layman terms, Data Science is knowing more about your business by applying several advanced statistical theories, algorithms and techniques. Machine learning, a flavor of artificial intelligence, is a way to instruct the machine to learn from the data. And now, Data Science coupled with Machine learning is a terrific way to not only know what your data statistics show but to also predict the future given the knowledge. When combined with Big Data, the opportunities explode to gain competitive advantage.

There are several business use cases where these exponentially evolving techniques are  getting leveraged. A few include, biological sciences, healthcare, insurance, banking, stock exchange, B2C, B2B industries in the areas of sales, marketing, service parts maintenance so on and so forth.

At a very high level, the prediction of future in these areas help in either (a) Increasing sales/revenue (b) Reducing operational costs or (c) Minimizing Risk. For instance, knowing the likelihood of a lead turning to an opportunity to quote to order will help an Organization to channelize the efforts, investments, actions in the right direction that impacts it's revenue directly.

Another use case to elaborate is demand forecasting. Traditional forecasting methods largely focused on finding patterns from past data and applying them to “project” basic average/aggregations of future sales. In contrast, Data Science not only projects future sales, but it also takes it further to “predict” based on several predictors. These data points come not only from internal systems but also from external social networks and macro data such as that from Nielsen. When applied to customer behavior, these techniques can predict what special incentive can push a customer to buy the items that were saved in the cart.

Drop a note to share your thoughts/ideas/perspectives  and  how your business  is leveraging Data Science and Machine Learning.

PS: VectorScient is an inception inspired by a need for a perfect blend in the areas of statistics, mathematics, computer science, machine learning techniques and expertise in select business use cases. Stay tuned for more developments!!!

Thanks for reading the post.