For risk managers looking to catch up on the current state of predictive analytics in the corporate world, there’s a useful, interesting article in the May issue of Risk Management magazine (the RIMS publication; subscription may be required). I should note that the article focuses on data mining for the purpose of “aid[ing] decision-making and strategic risk management”; this is as opposed to the kind of hazard risk management that eSolutions clients typically use our business solutions to manage.
However, I don’t think it will come as news to risk and insurance managers that predictive analytics is likely to be coming their way in the not-too-distant future. As the author reports: “While only 13% of companies had a predictive analytics system in place in 2012, research firm Gartner projects that 70% of the most profitable companies will employ either predictive analytics or more real-time collaboration techniques to ensure competitive advantage by 2016.”
Retail giant Target, a user of the eSolutions RiskConsole risk management information system, is already ahead of the game. For Target, RiskConsole is the hub of its predictive modeling system.
I encourage risk and insurance managers to read this interview from last summer in the eSolutions Impact blog with Target’s Eric Oldroyd. The interview is brimming with practical insights, including how Target is introducing concrete procedures to help manage claim and safety outcomes. Eric also shares some highly transferrable, practical advice about how risk managers can use risk management information software to perform some basic, but still very useful, data mining of their own.
Where does your organization stand on the predictive analytics spectrum? Please answer our poll question, below. And we’d love to hear from you in the comments section, too.
Stephen Rhee is Aon eSolutions’ chief operating officer. Please contact Stephen at stephen.rhee@aon.com.
