Rebecca and I have been doing a lot of work with clients recently in pIanning their future direction and mapping out their strategies for getting there.  I think that’s why the words below from James Kobielus in Forresters blog for Information and knowledge professionals resonated with me.  Here’s the first couple of paragraphs Kobielus’ post.

Business is all about placing bets and knowing if the odds are in your favor.

As I noted in my most recent Forrester report, business success depends on your company [or organization] being able to visualize likely futures and take appropriate actions as soon as possible. You must be able to predict future scenarios well enough to prepare plans and deploy resources so that you can seize opportunities, neutralize threats, and mitigate risks.

Clearly, predictive analytics can play a pivotal role in the day-to-day operation of your business. It can help you focus strategy and continually tweak plans based on actual performance and likely future scenarios. And, as I noted in a recent Forrester blog post, the technology can sit at the core of your service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy as you embed predictive logic deeply into …. business process management platforms …. and operational applications.