JT on EDM

A little while ago I got an interesting question from a reader about champion/challenger testing  – an element of adaptive control. Check out this brief on Adaptive Control or read the chapter in Smart (Enough) Systems for details on the approach. Anyway, here’s the question:
When testing a champion strategy with challengers, I assume sample [...]

I got a chance to sit down with Rob Walker last week for an update on Chordiant Decision Manager. Rob covered some of the new features in Chordiant Decision Management 6.2 as well as some general background that has not appeared in any of my posts before (check out First Look – Chordiant Decision Management [...]

I got a chance to look at a new decision product this week – Incanto from Qualia Systems in the UK. Incanto is a decision modeling tool and the founders of the company describe their objective as providing both a “scribble pad” where you could have a continual development process, moving pieces around until what [...]

Two articles I saw recently (Is SOA Enabling Intelligent Agents? and Three Keys to Enabling Agile Business Services) made me think about decision services in the context of agility and of so-called “intelligent agents”. Clearly SOA, web 2.0 and network-centric…

Predigy is a technology originally developed by Intelligent Results (founded in 2001) that was acquired by First Data in 2007. It was originally focused on the military (particularly on the analysis of unstructured data) but has subsequently moved into commercial applications. Predigy is now a decisioning platform with some applications in banking, collections, telecommunications and [...]

Darren Koch presented on Hotwire.com’s use of ILOG business rules in revenue management. Summary:

Ongoing segmentation and optimization help businesses serve customers
Smart testing + flexibility = better service = higher profits
Continues to show ROI that is increasing over time

Hotwire.com was founded in 1999 to help travel partners (who invested) sell excess inventory without driving down prices [...]

Graham Hill wrote a piece on Evidence-based CRM that focused on evidence-based CRM programs and it made me think about evidence-based CRM processes.
To me, evidence-based CRM means customer relationships, and thus customer treatments, that are based on evidence (data) and not judgment, hope, guesswork etc. It means

making offers that you have evidence this customer will [...]

When I talk to folks about decision management they sometimes seem intimidated by the complexity of the problem and the sophistication of organizations that have invested heavily in the approach. Here, then, are some thoughts to help you get started.

Begin – even if the first version is not perfect or even close.
Automate the decision even [...]

A collections session next with folks from Adeptra, Fair Isaac and GE Money talking about GE’s vision for virtual collections. The collections environment is extremely bad this year with massive growth in the need for collection agents. Delinquencies are up, problems are up, consumers are stressed. Scores are worsening (credit profiles are worse), payments are [...]

I started with an interesting breakfast this morning with Ian Ayres and Larry Rosenberger. Ian is the author of Super Crunchers (reviewed here in the wiki) and Larry is a research fellow and ex-CEO of Fair Isaac. The two of them were great conversationalists and we ranged across randomized testing (adaptive control), the power of [...]