High-performance analytics for big customer data

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 22, 2012

Mobile phone data is one obvious example of "big data." Not only do you have call records for every customer and every phone, but you might have network data on how those customers connect with one another. Data stores could also include location-based data, application usage data and data about different service packages and agreements. What can telecommunications providers do with all of that data to benefit their customers and improve revenue?

One telco company in Australia, Telstra, is improving marketing customer service with SAS high-performance analytics. The SAS solution speeds the analysis on data from 8.2 million customers through grid computing. In the video below, you'll notice some key quotes that sound a lot like the numbers I mentioned in my HPA: That's Incredible! post last week. For instance, "Things that used to take us 11 hours to analyze we can now do in 10 seconds," says Kate McKenzie, Chief Marketing Officer. Read More »

Post a Comment

What happens when a health care fraud scheme changes its spots?

Ross Kaplan
Ross Kaplan|February 22, 2012

In most of the articles and press pieces that speak of health care fraud, the topic is usually covered in broad terms regarding the type or activity that has taken place: over-billing to Medicare/Medicaid, services billed and not delivered, over subscription of medication (by members or Pharmacies), and the list goes on and on.

What is not evident at first glance is that the details and patterns associated with the various types of fraudulent behavior differ from region to region and continue to change over time. For example, it is generally accepted that fraud schemes begin in more populated regions and migrate to more rural areas over time. What is usually not mentioned, however,  is how the schemes themselves alter to adjust to new regions that they are moving into (accounting for different policies or regulations, for example). And more importantly, the schemes get smarter, having learned from their previous geography, what they can and cannot get away with. Read More »

Post a Comment

8 high-performance metaphors you should know

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 21, 2012

When I first started hearing SAS CEO Jim Goodnight talk about high-performance analytics (HPA), I was fascinated. But I have to admit that my mind was spinning a bit from the terminology: blades, cores, captains, generals and so on.

But then the metaphorical nature of these terms clicked for me, and I'm just enough of a language geek to get a kick out of the metaphors we use to describe technology.

In this post, I'm attempting to dig into the comparisons in those metaphors, and to analyze the use of common words to help us describe and understand something new. For caveats, keep in mind that I'm no linguist or computer scientist, and this is surely an incomplete list. I'll start with this image that I found in a recent HPA presentation by Oliver Schabenberger and Radhika Kulkarni, two HPA experts at SAS. Read More »

Post a Comment

High-performance analytics for complex research

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 20, 2012

After a week of me sharing links and blogging about my thoughts on high-performance analytics, some of you may be saying, "Yes, but how are customers using it? What are the practical benefits, already?" With that in mind, I'd like to spend some time this week pointing out customer stories that feature high-performance analytics. This first one is about a data research service in Pennsylvania.

Though developed in 1993 to support faculty research at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton Research Data Services has evolved into the leading tool for a global community of researchers seeking answers to the world's most complicated economic questions, including portfolio construction and benchmarking, financial litigation support, and event studies.

Read More »

Post a Comment

What's your grade? Utility Summit exposes wide gaps in analytical maturity

Alyssa Farrell
Alyssa Farrell|February 20, 2012

Managing the deluge of smart grid data.
Responding to the increased demand for customer intelligence.
Implementing analytics for grid optimization.

These were just a few of the topics covered at this week’s inaugural “Utility Analytics Summit.”

Utilities have been grappling with implementation of smart grid devices for several years and are now feeling the pain of significantly larger data volumes than they have ever seen before.  Sensors along the energy value chain – from your smart meter on your house, to sensors along the transmission and distribution lines, to new distributed energy resources – produce a higher volume and velocity of data than utilities have had access to before. Read More »

Post a Comment

Eric Williams on big data and high-performance analytics

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 17, 2012

I just had a great conversation about big data and high-performance analytics with Eric Williams, retired CIO of Catalina Marketing, and I hope to publish some of what he had to say here in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, you can learn a lot about how big data is influencing the marketing services and consumer packaged goods industries in this video from a recent InformationWeek event. Read More »

Post a Comment

Twitter is a big data problem

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 16, 2012

Filtering large data volumesBack in my day-one post of this "HPA once a day project," I promised a post about Twitter as "big data."

I know some of you are already moaning about the noise on Twitter and the "what I ate for breakfast" type of commentary that's prevalent there. So I'm going to promise right off the bat not to give you a perky "Twitter is whatever you make it" type of response. No, the fact is, Twitter is noisy. And it's often irrelevant. And distracting. And sometimes a whole lot of fluff. I'll admit all of that up front. Read More »

Post a Comment

10 high-performance analytics tips for bankers

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 15, 2012

Bank Systems & Technology just published a special issue focused on "big data" - and how high-performance analytics helps solve the big data problem. Clicking on the cover image will take you to the ebook, so you can flip through 24 pages full of information about the benefits of big data for banking.

Since some of you don't have time to flip through the whole thing, I've pulled out some key points here. Honestly, there are dozens of ideas worth sharing in this publication - but these are my favorites:

Read More »

Post a Comment

HPA: That's Incredible!

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 14, 2012

What is a typical reaction to high-performance analytics? Consider these scenarios:

  • What do investment bankers say when you tell them the risk calculations they used to do every three days on a subset of their portfolio can now be done within minutes - all while analyzing the full portfolio?
  • What do retailers say when you tell them they can optimize prices for all items in stock, customize prices per store and even predict pricing changes over the next few seasons?
  • What do patients say when you tell them their entire medical history can be stored, analyzed and compared to similar family and geographic healthcare data to help predict and prevent disease?
  • What do government executives say when you tell them they can use public record data to find connections in random activities and identify fraud rings that could save tax payers tens of millions of dollars?

They say, "That's incredible!" Just look at the numbers in these ads. They really are incredible:

Read More »

Post a Comment

HPA once a day: day one

Alison Bolen
Alison Bolen|February 13, 2012

I'm not a fan of obscure acronyms in blog post titles, but by the end of this month I'm hoping HPA won't be obscure to anyone who reads this blog. It stands for high-performance analytics, and I'm challenging myself to blog about it once a day for the next 30 days. Why? Because I'm editing two new print publications about HPA, so I know I'll be coming across a lot of interesting information that will be worth sharing.

Plus, I've been neglecting this blog for a while now and I need a challenge to get myself back into the habit of writing here. I have the same excuses as every other lapsed blogger: other projects, other priorities, other distractions. So, I need the same cure: practice, repetition and habit.

Enough about me. What do I have to share today about HPA? This morning, Twitter friend and SAS user @vboykis pointed me to "The Age of Big Data" from The New York Times Sunday Review. More than a surface read about the trendy big data theme, the piece by Steve Lohr gets into the technology needed to find answers in big data right from the start: Read More »

Post a Comment