Welcome to the 2019 Predictive Analytics World (PAW) Conference Series. Recorded live in Las Vegas, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews James Taylor, CEO of Decision Management Solutions. Find James Online: Email: james@decisionmanagementsolutions.com LinkedIn Decision Management Solutions [00:02] My guest today is James Taylor. We are live at Predictive Analytics World, Marketing Analytics World. His business is Decision... [00:11] Management Solutions. [00:14] Got it. You are chairing a track today. [00:18] Yeah, I’m monitoring the business track. I’m kicking it off right after the keynotes, and then I’m monitoring it for the next couple of days. [00:24] That’s great. Obviously, you know who’s on the panel. [00:28] Yeah, there’s a panel; there’s a whole bunch of presenters. It tends to be the ones who are not so much talking about how to build a predictive analytic model so much as how to use a predictive analytics model: how to put it into production, how to get people to adopt it, what the challenges are, getting people to understand what a model does, and those non-modeling kinds of things. [00:49] Which actually the better that goes, the bigger the lever of the model, right? I mean... [00:55] Yeah, I’d go further. I would say that if you... There’s not difference between business value and analytic values. If your analytic, however good it is, isn’t actually being used, then it has no value. [01:05] That’s right, that’s right. The ROI on that’s really easy to calculate. Now, this is not your first show. [01:11] No, I’ve been, I think, to every Predictive Analytics World. I’ve been coming here a long time. I know Eric and the Rising Media folks well. And it’s been fun to watch it grow and watch it change from really a very niche kind of show where’s there’s people from financial services and credit cards to one where all sorts of people are here. It’s great. [01:31] Now, your business, tell us a little bit about what it is that you guys do. [01:34] So, Decision Management Solutions focuses on companies that are really trying to automate decision-making. So, there’s some high-volume transaction where it’s not obvious what to do. So, you have to decide what to do for each transaction. And, obviously, that’s driving a lot of analytics. A lot of people what they want to do is they want to use machine learning, analytics, AI to make a better decision about these transactions, but they’re high enough volume that you can’t just show stuff to people and hope the people can handle the transaction, you got to automate it. So we help build those automated systems, into which you can embed these kinds of analytic models. [02:08]
Welcome to the 2019 Predictive Analytics World (PAW) Conference Series. Recorded live in Las Vegas, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews James Taylor, CEO of Decision Management Solutions.
Find James Online:
Email: james@decisionmanagementsolutions.com
Decision Management Solutions
[00:02]
My guest today is James Taylor. We are live at Predictive Analytics World, Marketing Analytics World. His business is Decision...
[00:11]
Management Solutions.
[00:14]
Got it. You are chairing a track today.
[00:18]
Yeah, I’m monitoring the business track. I’m kicking it off right after the keynotes, and then I’m monitoring it for the next couple of days.
[00:24]
That’s great. Obviously, you know who’s on the panel.
[00:28]
Yeah, there’s a panel; there’s a whole bunch of presenters. It tends to be the ones who are not so much talking about how to build a predictive analytic model so much as how to use a predictive analytics model: how to put it into production, how to get people to adopt it, what the challenges are, getting people to understand what a model does, and those non-modeling kinds of things.
[00:49]
Which actually the better that goes, the bigger the lever of the model, right? I mean...
[00:55]
Yeah, I’d go further. I would say that if you... There’s not difference between business value and analytic values. If your analytic, however good it is, isn’t actually being used, then it has no value.
[01:05]
That’s right, that’s right. The ROI on that’s really easy to calculate. Now, this is not your first show.
[01:11]
No, I’ve been, I think, to every Predictive Analytics World. I’ve been coming here a long time. I know Eric and the Rising Media folks well. And it’s been fun to watch it grow and watch it change from really a very niche kind of show where’s there’s people from financial services and credit cards to one where all sorts of people are here. It’s great.
[01:31]
Now, your business, tell us a little bit about what it is that you guys do.
[01:34]
So, Decision Management Solutions focuses on companies that are really trying to automate decision-making. So, there’s some high-volume transaction where it’s not obvious what to do. So, you have to decide what to do for each transaction. And, obviously, that’s driving a lot of analytics. A lot of people what they want to do is they want to use machine learning, analytics, AI to make a better decision about these transactions, but they’re high enough volume that you can’t just show stuff to people and hope the people can handle the transaction, you got to automate it. So we help build those automated systems, into which you can embed these kinds of analytic models.
[02:08]
Do you have like a favorite project or ideal customer-type?
[02:12]
Uh, my favorite project probably is around like “next best offer, next best action” kinds of things. If you’re a multi-line company, you’ve got lots of different products or your products have complex eligibility like insurance products, then it’s easy to say, “Oh, you should make the next best offer to this customer this moment in the customer journey.” But actually, figuring out what that offer is – given what they already own, what they’re allowed to buy, which products go with which other products, what the rules are – is a non-trivial problem for most companies. And those systems tend to be more fun ‘cause they’re not as heavily regulated as some other decisions. So you don’t have to worry about the law quite as much as you do; you have to worry a little but not a lot. The key concern is privacy but the kinds of systems we build don’t need to who you are, they just need to know things about you.
[02:57]
So, you’re not dealing with PII,