SAP Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics in SAP Analytics Cloud

What is Predictive Analytics?

Predictive analytics is a form of advanced analytics that helps make future predictions based on historical data. Typically, the process involves leveraging a combination of statistics, data mining, and machine learning (ML) algorithms to build a mathematical model. This model is then leveraged on the current data to predict what will happen or to predict an outcome.

How Does SAP Analytics Cloud Support Predictive Analytics?

Like most best-of-breed analytics tools, SAP Analytics Cloud provides users the ability to leverage advanced ML algorithms for predictive analytics. Predictive planning and analytics in SAP Analytics Cloud are embedded in the intelligent predict functionality. Smart predict democratizes predictive analytics by automating many complicated steps of predictive analytics. In that sense, intelligent prediction helps develop citizen data scientists by using the power of augmented analytics. According to SAP, the “focus is on the business questions, not algorithms, which helps speed the prediction and recommendation process.”

Predictive Analytics in SAP Analytics Cloud

What is Predictive Analytics?

Predictive analytics is a form of advanced analytics that helps make future predictions based on historical data. Typically, the process involves leveraging a combination of statistics, data mining, and machine learning (ML) algorithms to build a mathematical model. This model is then leveraged on the current data to predict what will happen or to predict an outcome.

How Does SAP Analytics Cloud Support Predictive Analytics?

Like most best-of-breed analytics tools, SAP Analytics Cloud provides users the ability to leverage advanced ML algorithms for predictive analytics. Predictive planning and analytics in SAP Analytics Cloud are embedded in the intelligent predict functionality. Smart predict democratizes predictive analytics by automating many complicated steps of predictive analytics. In that sense, intelligent prediction helps develop citizen data scientists by using the power of augmented analytics. According to SAP, the “focus is on the business questions, not algorithms, which helps speed the prediction and recommendation process.”

Keys Considerations

• Selecting the suitable model algorithm: Though the tool places the power of analytics in the hands of non-data scientists, it is still essential to understand what type of algorithms can be leveraged in which scenario. Three key options are available (classification, regression, and time series), and you can select the model based on the business question you are trying to answer. So, understanding which algorithm can help answer a specific business question is essential. An example is whether a particular customer will default on a credit card payment. Classification algorithms can answer this.
• Ensuring input data quality: Like other analytics tools, the robustness of results depends on the quality of the input data. Hence, it is critical to ensure that the data quality is good and harmonized to allow smart predict to use it optimally.
• Selecting and understanding the correct variables: The tool provides you an easy-to-use and intuitive interface to set the variables you need for your analysis and determine the associated variable roles (like the variable you want to predict — target variable — and the predictors, dates, etc.). Hence, understanding underlying data and variables are critical for helping the tool build good, usable models.

Once you have covered these steps, smart predict then trains on the selected data and builds a predictive model that aligns best with the underlying data, variables, and other chosen parameters. Intelligence prediction takes care of the training, parameter setting, and optimization.

Below are some valuable resources you can reference to develop additional expertise:

https://www.sap.com/assetdetail/2020/12/38db8710-c27d-0010-87a3-c30de2ffd8ff.html

https://masteringsap.com/using-predictive-models-to-prepare-for-the-future/