All posts by Alexander Pelaez, Ph.D

Alexander Pelaez, Ph.D., is a President of Five Element Analytics, an analytics consulting firm. He has served as a senior executive to a number of firms in healthcare, retail and media. He is also a professor of Information Systems and Business Analytics at Hofstra University.

Misusing Prediction Models

Basic predictions are one of the most fundamental aspects of data science. It provides insight that enables functional units such as marketing, logistics and finance to take action on the data. One of the most basic tools in the prediction area are regression models. Regression models take a number of “predictor” variables, i.e. variables that will be used to predict some outcome, and one or more “response”, i.e. outcome, variables. While the technique is very powerful, using it improperly can lead to disastrous effects. Continue reading Misusing Prediction Models

The Yin Yang Of Analytics

With the buzz around business analytics, its not surprising that companies struggle to find value with all the data they collected. Analytics is much more than just collecting data and writing reports. The concept of business intelligence is around collecting data and understanding the existing environment, but analytics requires companies to go much further, and begin to provide accurate and meaningful predictions of future behavior and explanations of present activities.

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Top 4 Skillsets For Data Analytics

I’m asked repeatedly by students and professionals, what skills are really needed to get into analytics? In speaking with executives and colleagues, it became apparent that beyond the interpersonal and critical reasoning skills, there were 4 technical skills that set candidates apart. Consider each technical skill like tools in a toolbox, you don’t necessarily need to know everything about it, but the more you know in any area, the higher your competitive advantage over your counterparts. Continue reading Top 4 Skillsets For Data Analytics

Asking The Right Questions

Recently, an executive at an online media firm had asked me to take a look at some data. His team had found some interesting results using some correlations of data points for his web activity. Unfortunately, he wasn’t convinced of what they were saying because his intuition was telling him. However, he couldn’t refute the analysis, it was fairly sound. He decided to get another opinion. Continue reading Asking The Right Questions