Chordiant has released its new data modeling suite.
There is a distinct increase in the use of modeling and forecasting techniques as organizations seek out new opportunities and reduce costs by attempting to establish a clearer understanding of customer behavior patterns. The theory goes that if you are able to understand historical behavior or pick out trends, you are in a better position to predict, or even shape, future behavior.
However, one of the problems with advanced data modeling and forecasting is that it is a specialized skill. As a consequence, employing statisticians and model developers can be expensive. Furthermore, many organizations have justifiable concerns over the ability of such individuals to have a sound appreciation of important business issues – the ‘real world’ if you like.
The Chordiant Decision Management solution is made up of a set of integrated applications, designed to facilitate the development and execution of customer contact management strategies. It relies on highly sophisticated data modeling to gain an understanding of the significant correlations that exist within the vast volume of customer-related data that even a modestly sized business will collect.
However, the Chordiant approach differs significantly from other data modeling solutions on the market, as it aims to automate the sequence of events that an experienced statistical analyst would undertake, thereby encouraging less-skilled individuals to undertake data modeling.
A Wizard guides the user through many of the steps that a model developer would follow, including data selection, data analysis (with automated binning), model development, testing, and deployment. Once deployed, models can then be combined within decision workflows, which essentially allow operational constraints or decision logic to drive model execution and hence modify customer agent actions.
Nevertheless, data modeling is a complex art and doubts must remain as to how well software can replicate and automate the knowledge of an experienced individual. Chordiant’s challenge is to convince us all.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
