Predictive Analytics – An Introduction to Business Forecasting

No one has the ability to capture and analyze data from the future. However, there is a way to predict the future using data from the past. It’s called predictive analytics, and organizations do it every day.

Has your company, for example, developed a customer lifetime value (CLTV) measure? That metric involves using predictive analytics to determine how much a customer will buy from the company over time. Do you have a service or product recommendation capability? That’s an analytical prediction of the product or service that your customer is most likely to buy next. Have you made a forecast of the upcoming quarter’s sales? Or used digital marketing models to determine what ad to place on what publisher’s site? All of these are forms of predictive analytics.

This course covers a few basics so you become more comfortable working with and communicating with others in your organization about the results and recommendations from predictive analytics.