Johannesburg, 05 Nov 2018
Argility, part of the Argility Technology Group, has launched PredictIT, a powerful analytics platform designed to help companies convert raw data into actionable insights. Marko Salic, CEO of Argility, says PredictIT leverages predictive modelling, data science and machine learning to help companies use their data intelligently to increase sales and drive profitability.
"Modern systems are generating huge amounts of data; however, turning that data into the gold of genuine business value is a tough challenge requiring specialist knowledge and huge processing capability," Salic explains. "PredictIT brings all that is needed onto a single platform, leveraging Argility's three decades of intellectual capital in the retail and financial services sectors."
Over the years, data analytics has moved from describing what happened to answering questions like why it happened (diagnostic analytics) and what is likely to happen (predictive analytics). Now, he says, data science can help companies influence what happens (prescriptive analytics). To do this, PredictIT uses data science techniques, including machine learning and deep learning, to mimic human ability to reason and learn, creating a system that can not only derive insights from large amounts of data, but itself mutates in response to those insights, or simply referred to as artificial intelligence (AI). In this way, more and more of the analytics process is automated, greatly enhancing the value of what the system can deliver, and its effect on the business's profitability.
The move from hindsight through insight to foresight is highly significant as companies compete in increasingly competitive markets. PredictIT can be used to forecast demand more accurately, optimise prices, increase client spend and loyalty through targeted recommendations, use customer behaviour analytics and profiling to segment customers more finely, and detect anomalies like fraud rapidly. The travel and healthcare sectors also offer numerous examples where the ability to predict and influence what will happen is very valuable.
Marketing and sales teams across all sectors will benefit from PredictIT's ability to improve segmentation and price optimisation, and analyse churn, predict customer lifetime value and propensity to purchase, and transform the capability to upsell. PredictIT can also apply sentiment analysis to help companies negotiate the treacherous waters of social media successfully.
"A complex offering like PredictIT is perfectly suited to the software as a service (SaaS) model because it means that the massive processing needed can be handled in the cloud," Salic says in conclusion.
"As with most cloud-based SaaS purchases, this means that the expense is recognised on the operational rather than the capital budget, and is highly scalable."
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