Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics

Participants will be introduced to predictive and prescriptive analytics and the broad set of business applications these tools support. Predictive analytics use advanced algorithms and machine learning to process historical data, 'learning' what has happened while uncovering unseen data patterns, interactions and relationships. Then it creates models that show the likelihood of scenarios or outcomes. Prescriptive analytics solutions enable accurate decision-making for complex problems that involve millions of decision variables, constraints and trade-offs with optimization techniques. These solutions augment a company's decision support capabilities by providing tools for building and deploying optimization models that are mathematical representations of business problems. Optimization models then solve using sophisticated algorithms and deliver recommendations to business decision-makers. Simply put, predictive analytics provide an estimate of time, resources needed, and demand. Prescriptive analytics can help build replenishment plans to decide which warehouse should supply to each location to meet demand. Several different modeling techniques will be covered in the course including linear regression, logistic regression, and decision tress analysis. These tools will equip participants with competencies needed by decision-makers in all industries and will provide 'future-proof' protection.