With the recent developments in the market, Predictive analytics has come out as an essential driving force for businesses in the world. Predictive analytics embraces a wide range of statistical techniques including data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning which assists in analyzing current and historical facts and information to predict future or unknown events.
It also helps organizations to understand how to improvise research, development, marketing, maintenance, cybersecurity and N number of other tasks. Statistical techniques and specialized algorithms provide insights and models that would help an organization understand conditions and deploy resources more efficiently.
• As per reports, the global market of predictive analytics is likely to accelerate up to $12.41 billion by 2022 from $4.56 billion in 2017.
• Amid the wave of so many disruptive technologies, predictive analytics is the one that assists companies to discover anomalies, anticipate events and employ "what-if-simulations' and analyze customer preferences and behavior.
• Predictive Analytics tools are these days used to aim at a range of diverse challenges including financial matters, human behavior, supply chains, and cybersecurity.
Predictive analytics encompasses various guarded steps:
• defining a project
• assembling the relevant data
• conducting the data analysis
• applying statistics and modeling
• deploying the predictive model
• monitoring and validating the model for accuracy
• accuracy-produced usable results
Earlier, businesses used to employ different tools for each of the above tasks but there is a collective tool to enhance efficiency and yield best outcomes.
Let's take a look at the top 10 vendors/providers in predictive analytics space.
The Analytics Solutions provided by Alteryx are Alteryx Designer, Alteryx Server, Alteryx Connect and Alteryx Promote. It has come out as a leading platform for predictive analytics which focuses on providing tools for non-data scientists, analysts and experts. Alteryx offers an end-to-end no-code approach for simplifying data discovery and processing. It can extract data from sources as diverse as data warehouses and social networking sites. Also, it is optimized for regression analysis, neural networks, decision trees, time series modeling and other tasks.
Alteryx promotes data investigation, traditional and modern statistical modeling, time series and predictive grouping. The platform includes more than 40 predesigned tools and templates to help in building predictive models. It also supports connected workflows and collaboration.
However, it landed on the border of "Challengers" and "Leaders" in Gartner's 2019 Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms. Alteryx received a 4.5 user rating at G2 Crowd and the same score at Gartner's Peer Insights review site which was enough to gain a Gartner Customers' Choice 2018 distinction.
The Analytics Solutions provided by Microsoft are Power BI and Azure Machine Learning Studio. The platform offers a growing range of tools and solutions designed to tap machine learning and predictive modelling which delivers powerful data mining, data preparation, visual-based data discovery, interactive dashboards and other capabilities within a single product. Power BI is designed for the entire spectrum of users—from non-data scientists to business analysts and experts.
Additionally, Azure Machine Learning offers an array of analytics capabilities, tapping the Azure cloud platform including text, sentiment, image analytics and AI functionality.
Gartner positioned Microsoft in the "Leaders" category in its 2019 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. Users give the provider high marks (4.2 out of 5 stars for Power BI at G2 Crowd) and describe it as the solutions that are on the leading edge of functionality.
The Analytics Solutions provided by Qlik are Qlik Analytics Platform, Qlik Sense, QlikView, Qlik Core and Qlik Data Catalyst. The platform aims to deliver a comprehensive platform for managing data science tasks, including predictive analytics by offering a high level of scalability and flexibility through built-in capabilities as well as add-ons for geo-analytics and external data markets and data services. It supports custom applications through a robust set of APIs.
It's two flagship products (QlikView and Qlik Sense) offer strong cognitive features and an Insight Advisor that delivers suggestions for refining projects. QlikView handles predictive capabilities in conjunction with built in VBScript that works with R scripts.
Qlik Core product supports cloud and edge app development.
Qlik Data Catalyst aims to simplify and accelerate data discovery. Overall, the platform supports numerous data sources, complex data models and complex calculations, Gartner noted in the MQ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
The platform ranked the company among the "Leaders." Users give the platform high marks. It received a 4.1 out of 5 stars at G2 Crowd. Users describe QlikView and other products from Qlik as powerful, scalable and easy-to-use.
The Analytics Solutions provided by RapidMiner are RapidMiner Studio and RapidMiner Radoop. The vendor places predictive data science at the epicentre of its platform which is built around a visual workflow designer that accommodates business analysts, executives and data science specialists. Also, the platform relies on a drag-and-drop interface that connects to more than 1,500 machine learning algorithms specifically designed for different use cases.
Pre-built templates focus on customer churn, predictive maintenance, fraud detection and other tasks. It connects to data warehouses, databases, cloud sources, social media and numerous business applications. The platform handles ETL and data prep through in-databased processing, which allows it work faster.
RapidMiner Radoop incubates code-free machine learning using open-source Hadoop and Spark. Gartner quoted advanced features and GPU support as reasons for placing the RapidMiner in the "Leaders" category in its MQ for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms. RapidMiner also received 4.5 out of 5 stars at G2 Crowd. Users describe it as an intuitive and extremely powerful platform.
The Analytics Solution provided by Salesforce is Salesforce Einstein Analytics. The platform transforms data from the vendor's CRM application along with numerous outside sources—including point of sale systems—to spot significant patterns. It includes 15 prebuilt dashboards that provide views into 30 events. Its analytical solution encloses R Code and numerous APIs for additional functionality.
The platform also includes AI-augmented data discovery and explanations. Gartner ranked Salesforce Einstein Analytics on the border of "Visionaries" and "Leaders" on its MQ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
This analytical solution received 4.3 out of 5 stars at G2 Crowd and a 4.2 rating at Gartner Peer Insights. Users praised the features and capabilities, particularly in regard to sales and CRM.
The Analytics Solutions provided by SAS are SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning. Visual Analytics product of SAS (which is built for both non-data scientists and experts) includes interactive dashboards that display data through multiple channels, including Microsoft Office applications. Smart visualizations present data in logical and compelling ways through templates and auto-charting.
The platform also includes self-service features for data import and management, powerful text and geolocation analytics, and support for mobile platforms—all from a drag-and-drop interface. SAS Data Mining and Machine Learning taps in-memory processing and a highly scalable architecture to produce fast predictive modeling and visual capabilities. The platform includes model assessments and scoring tools which includes detailed reporting on the results from multiple supervised learning algorithms.
Gartner ranked the company in the "Leaders" category in its MQ for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms. SAS Visual Analytics obtained a 4.2 out of 5 stars at both G2 Crowd and Gartner Peer Insights. Users praised the interface and the depth of the tools and features.
The Analytics Solution provided by Sisense is itself named as Sisense. Vendor's BI software that handles database management, ETL, analytics and visualizations. A proprietary In-Chip technology framework processes data rapidly in memory, and a machine learning component offers anomaly detection and predictive insights.
It supports complex mash-ups of data through a drag-and-drop interface. The platform connects to cloud services such as AWS and Azure, and it includes automated insight generation and integration with Amazon Alexa and various chatbots.
Gartner positioned Sisense in its "Visionaries" category for the MQ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms (on the border with "Leaders"). It earned a 4.5 out of 5-star rating at Gartner Peer Insights, where it also captured a Customers' Choice 2018 designation. Users praised the product's strong features and capabilities.
The Analytics Solutions provided by Tableau software are Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server and Tableau Online. Its flexible visually-oriented drag-and-drop interface that doesn't require data science or programming skills. It connects to numerous external data sources which includes heavyweights such as AWS, Azure, Dropbox, Microsoft Excel and Salesforce—and it integrates with geolocation mapping and other tools for advanced forecasting, clustering and other analytics capabilities.
Natural language querying is one newly added feature of the software. Gartner ranked Tableau in its "Leaders" category in its MQ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. All of the three solutions earned a rating of 4.1 or higher at G2 Crowd.
The Analytics Solution of the vendor is itself named as Thoughtspot. It takes a visualization-centric approach to BI and analytics. Its solutions focus on AI-driven insight, natural language search and a democratized BI platform to answer questions and drive insights.
Thoughtspot focuses on uncovering anomalies, identifying leading indicators, isolating trends and segmenting data to spot important trends and patterns. The platform incorporates AI and machine learning algorithms and analyzes data at massive scale.
The platform also uses bots and automated features to deliver notifications and alerts. Thoughtspot ranked in the "Leaders" category in the Gartner MQ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. It gained a 4.4 out of 5-star rating at Gartner Peer Review and a 4.3 rating at G2 Crowd. Users cited ease-of-use and powerful automation as benefits.
The Analytics Solutions provided by TIBCO Software are TIBCO Data Science and TIBCO Spotfire. The core of TIBCO's predictive capabilities resides in Spotfire and Data Science. Spotfire platform offers visual dashboards, interactive visualizations, and powerful data extraction and manipulations tools within a single platform. The platform powers through data using in-memory processing and offers numerous APIs to connect with external sources such as AWS, Salesforce and open source Apache Spark.
Additionally, the platform facilitates data sharing across enterprise applications—and to support specific vertical industries. It also supports natural language search and AI and machine learning insights.
Gartner positioned TIBCO Software near the border of its "Leaders" and "Visionaries" category in the MQ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms (it was designated a "Visionary"). Spotfire earned a 4.1 out of 5 stars at G2 Crowd and a 4.2 at Gartner Peer Insights. Users described it as a great data visualization tool and useful for those that lack dedicated data science skills.