Definition #
Statistical techniques predicting trends, behaviors, and events using historical data.
Key Characteristics #
- Time series analysis
- Feature engineering
- Scenario modeling
- Confidence interval reporting
Why It Matters #
Improves decision speed by 60% and accuracy by 45% (MIT Sloan).
Common Use Cases #
- Sales forecasting
- Equipment failure prediction
- Customer churn analysis
Examples #
- SAS Predictive Analytics
- RapidMiner
- Alteryx
FAQs #
Q: Minimum data requirements?
A: 2-3 years of historical data for seasonal patterns.
Q: Cloud vs on-prem?
A: Cloud solutions handle big data scaling automatically.