3 Components that Underlie Predictive Analytics

Let's start with understanding "Predictive Analytics". This term originated as an evolution from "Descriptive Analytics", or just plain "Analytics". Descriptive analytics refers to the process of distilling large amounts of data into summary information that is more easily consumed by humans. Example techniques used in Descriptive Analytics include counts and averages to answer a question such as "What were my average sales by region last quarter?" By its nature, descriptive analytics is a backward looking view at "what happened."