By: Eric Siegel, Founder, Predictive Analytics World

In anticipation of her upcoming conference co-presentation, Utilizing Advanced Analytics to Generate Insights at Predictive Analytics World Chicago, June 20-23, 2016, we asked Alice Alice Chung imageChung, Senior Manager at Genentech, a few questions about her work in predictive analytics.

Q: In your work with predictive analytics, what behavior or outcome do your models predict?

A: We are trying to understand correlations between certain attributes that drive behavior changes of our study population. Understanding these relationships will help us address business questions and develop appropriate action plans to work effectively with our customers.

Q: How does predictive analytics deliver value at your organization – what is one specific way in which it actively drives decisions or operations?

A: Predictive analytics allows us to perform scenario planning to answer specific questions for our business. In both decision making and operational activities, we will be able to answer questions precisely and to anticipate outcomes based on market dynamics and business needs.

Q: Can you describe a quantitative result, such as the predictive lift of your model or the ROI of an analytics initiative?

A: We are still working on collecting results and characterizing our predictive output. This is a work in progress for us at the moment.

Q: What surprising discovery or insight have you unearthed in your data?

A: It’s all about using and synthesizing data to answer specific questions for decision making. I have heard people hypothetically discuss various scenarios to utilize various predictive models yet there’s no data to use. I have also heard people spending time reviewing/analyzing data without business context or knowing what questions to address. Both approaches, in my mind, don’t yield meaningful insights.

For my team, we understand what and how our data can be used and the level of insights it can bring to support predictive models. The most critical component of our analysis and recommendations is to understand its limitations to answer business questions and identify methods to overcome them.

Q: Sneak preview: Please tell us a take-away that you will provide during your talk at Predictive Analytics World.

A: We will be discussing high level approach of our experiments and have dialogues with the audience to gather input and feedback based on their experiences!

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Don't miss Alice’s conference co-presentation, Utilizing Advanced Analytics to Generate Insights on Tuesday, June 21, 2016 from 11:45 am to 12:05 pm at Predictive Analytics World Chicago. Click here to register to attend.

By: Eric Siegel, Founder, Predictive Analytics World