IBM SPSS-Making the World Smarter with Predictive Analytics

SPSS Part of IBMs Smarter Planet Initiative In recent years, particularly with the acquisitions of important analytics applications such as Cognos in 2008 and SPSS in 2009, IBM has been executing an ambitious strategy, expanding its presence in the business intelligence (BI) and analytics space. Specifically, it has incorporated its analytics platform into IBMs global Smarter Planet initiative, which includes Social Business, SmartCloud, MobileFirst, and, of course, the Smarter Analytics portion, of which SPSS is a core component. With a comprehensive vision, the vendor has developed, both internally and via the acquisition of key players in this space, a complete platform, called IBM Analytics, that enables users to develop their analytics efforts. This platform includes the availability of core BI functionality via Cognos BI as well as a full suite of products for performing a wide variety of data analysis operations, including BI and performance management, decision and risk management, and content analytics. It also includes the availability of analytics for lines of business (LOBs), performance optimization, and information technology (IT) infrastructures. Statistical Product and Software Solutions, known simply as SPSS, was a dominant player in the software space for statistical analysis, predictive analysis, and data mining for more than 40 years, with the very first version released in 1968. The company competed with the likes of Fico, SAS, and Statsoft prior to acquisition by IBM in 2009. SPSS has since been a core element of IBMs analytics strategy and has continued to evolve as a set of software applications that enables users to perform both simple and advanced statistical and data mining operations.

As a main player in IBMs analytics strategy, SPSS provides a multitude of business analytics services. It offers organizations data mining and predictive analytics capabilities as part of IBMs Smarter Planet initiativethereby enabling decision management and IT infrastructure analytics. A Look into SPSSs Main Components The SPSS portfolio comprises four families of products: The data collection family provides the necessary tools for gaining access to data coming from different sources, such as surveys, preexisting data sources, etc. The modeling family provides the tools for designing the proper mathematical models to apply toward predicting, forecasting, and planning tasks, among others. The statistics family provides a comprehensive suite of modules for statistical analysis. The deployment family includes the platform for all the necessary products for delivering SPPS solutions and for enabling collaboration and decision management.

Using these four product families, IBM SPSS takes a middleware approach to providing analytics services in many different business areas, from predicting customer behavior, to detecting threats and fraud, to managing the complete decision process (figure 1).

Figure 1. IBM SPSS Main Components and Families, courtesy of IBM As figure 1 shows, the SPSS product family acts as a middle (core) analytical component that acts on top of IBMs sources of information, such as InfoSphere and Netezza, among others, for developing all of the predictive analysis capabilities of an organization. Interestingly, SPSS serves as the companion to all core BI functions performed by IBMs core BI product Cognos. IBM has the ability to put SPSS in the middle of not only its predictive analytics capabilities, but also its entire business analytics strategy. IBM is therefore using SPSS as the core platform for all its industry analytics initiatives, which cater to the following sectors:

Banking Communications Consumer products Education Energy and utilities Government Health care Industrial Insurance Life sciences

Media and entertainment Retail

SPSSEvolving the BI Framework Predictive analytics allows for the enrichment of a BI and analytics platform solution. Therefore, by adding predictive capabilities to a companys platform, the organization greatly enhances its ability not only to reactively respond to data analysis, but also to proactively predict likely future events, which can translate into simulating scenarios (figure 2), analyzing potential scenarios, forecasting, planning, and, more importantly, enhancing the effective and timely execution of business processes.

Figure 2. IBM SPSS Simulation Builder, courtesy of IBM As one of IBMs analytics spokespersons mentioned to me, the IBM platform works on adding, not replacing, all the analytics abilities into a single operational platform to provide insight in the form of, for example, standard and ad hoc reports, alerts, dashboards, and slice-and-dice analysis and foresight in the form of forecasting, what-if analysis and simulation, and pure mathematical optimization capabilities. SPSS is an integral part of IBMs ecosystem, along with all the IBMs software offering product stack for

analysis such as Cognos, Clarity, Algo, OpenPages, and others. Also worth mentioning is the role of the SPSS family of products on IBMs Social Media Analytics offering, a solution that takes advantage of SPSS advanced analytics capabilities to analyze information gathered from social media channels. This solution, which can be deployed on premises or via software as a service (SaaS), is well equipped with Big Data connection capabilities and a set of prebuilt dashboards and reports. It also has the ability to easily generate demographic and behavioral analytics, and has advanced options for segmentation and sentiment analysis in different languages: English, German, French, Chinese, Spanish, and Dutch. In addition, there is strong integration of SPSS with IBMs Decision Management platform, which acts as an integrated companion for IBM CPLEX, IBMs mathematical programming and optimization tool, as well as for iLog, IBMs platform for collaborative LOB decision planning and execution. This integrated solution is an attractive offering for individuals involved in operations research, providing them with all the statistical and predictive analytics functions they need to perform their jobs. Having such a large set of offerings for business analytics can come with challenges, however. Some functional elements within IBMs Analytics product stack can be duplicated or can overlap, which can make it difficult for potential customers to identify which solutions provide the best combination for their specific needs. Such is the case for SPSS Forecasting functionality and Cognos Forecasting capabilities included in Cognos TM1, necessitating specific assistance from IBM and thus slowing the process of selecting software.