Decision Automation from TDWI

TDWI had a webinar today, that I missed but watched later, on Decision Automation - Embedding Analytics into Business Processes  with Wayne Eckerson (TDWI) and Dan Graham (Teradata). This was a nice presentation that built on Wayne's predictive analytics report and associated webinar (blogged about here). Some random thoughts: 

• I am not sure that operational BI is the same as EDM and Wayne tended to blur them - check out
• Wayne pointed out that the best rules engines can embed predictive analytic models to deliver complex decision services - oh yeah, definitely.
• He also pointed out the need to balance business user control with supporting complexity. I blogged about an approach to this here.
• He talks about decision automation at the front lines and decision support at the strategy level (see this interview)
• They advise focusing on high frequency, high cumulative value decisions - true.
• They talk about the danger of spooking customers and worrying executives when you deliver automated decisions and this is an area of change management that is important.
• Wayne underestimated the power of automation in online credit and fraud detection. This automation is close to 100%!
• I love the fact that everyone's talking about decision services these days - cool.
• The Teradata piece had some great examples of personalized marketing/experience using active data, analytics and rules. I presented on this at the Teradata Partners Conference but the examples Dan Graham presented were perfect - worth watching the whole thing or downloading the PDF just for these. For instance this one shows both how customer data can help a call center rep AND how decision automation can really improve that with personalized offers:
  

They give me a nice plug and I should say that Fair Isaac is a Teradata partner BTW (see this)  as Fair Isaac's Model Builder and Blaze Advisor products (predictive analytics and business rules respectively) are both tightly integrated with the Teradata Warehouse and CRM products.

Technorati Tags: analytic application, automated decision making, business rules, customer decisions, EDM, enterprise decision management, extreme personalization, personalization, predictive analytics, Wayne Eckerson, TDWI, Teradata