Top 5 Predictive Analytics Tools In 2021

Data is the new oil.

How many times have you heard this cliched catchphrase? Our guess is - over 100 times.

While we’re all tired of reminding that data is extremely important for future business intelligence, there’s a double meaning behind this phrase.

First of all, just like oil, raw data isn't valuable in and of itself. Secondly, the value of oil has decreased dramatically in 2021, while data is in more demand than ever before.

The true value of data crystallizes when it is gathered completely and accurately, gets intertwined with other relevant analytics data, and is used to make forecasts.

The latter is when predictive analytics tools step on the scene.
Today, we’ll unravel the mission of predictive analytics and data mining by looking into the most popular predictive analytics tools in 2021.

A Short Primer On Predictive Analytics

Predictive Analytics Market Size is expected to register a record value of $5.7 billion by 2026. A myriad of factors drives the adoption of the predictive analytics market. These include digital transformation, innovations in business intelligence, data science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and neural networks as well as remote practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Essentially, predictive analytics relies on data science, Artificial Intelligence, statistical algorithms, and Machine Learning algorithms to predict possible outcomes. The assumptions predictive analytics makes are based on historical data.

But the biggest challenge for data science and predictive analytics in 2021 is that all historical data has been rendered useless.

Guess, who’s to blame? (clue: it starts with C and ends with 19). Luckily, innovative predictive analytics tools are here to ensure business resilience. The new future needs new data patterns.

What Are Predictive Analytics Tools?

Predictive analytics software refers to smart tools that process the existing data and use it to look into the future. But it’s not like you’re reading tea leaves to forecast your business future. The powerful combo of Machine Learning and Data Science ensures predictive analytics fetches an accurate prediction of your business's future.

In 2021, data scientists don’t leverage the traditional approach of relying on historical data. The new real-time forecasting approach feeds on the current data that is relevant given the current state. In particular, predictive analytics now relies on any data gathered since March.

How Your Company Can Benefit From Predictive Analytics Software

Most business owners follow their gut feeling when they need to make an important decision. This flair is usually based on their own experience, professional advice, as well as their partners, friends, or relatives. And even if the idea pans out, it’s no more than a fluke.

On the contrary, predictive analytics gives you a significant competitive advantage. It uses data mining, Machine Learning, and statistical techniques to squeeze the juice out of available data.

Now, imagine that you always have a heads up on your business, know upcoming business trends, and the best solution in any situation. That’s right, you become invincible with 100% business resilience and predictive analytics.

Here’s how predictive analytics solutions can improve your bottom line:

• Find new product/service opportunities - by analyzing customer’s preferences, buying behavior, and responses, companies can tap into new areas of business or improve existing services;
• Optimize product and performance - predictive analytics tools also provide a deep look into the commercial offerings and supply chains as well as point out the improvement opportunities;
• Gain a deeper understanding of customers;
• Reduce costs and risks - by studying your past mistakes, you can prevent similar mistakes as well as select adequate precautionary actions to minimize the losses incurred.
• Meet consumer expectations - the advanced predictive analytics software will help you fine-tune your marketing tactics to cover the varying requirements of your current customers.

Real-World Use Cases of Predictive Analytics

If you’re still unmotivated to know more about predictive analytics, I’ll give you an inspo board. This is how businesses of all sizes use predictive analytics solutions.

Churn Prevention

A churn prediction system uses big data to identify customers who may stop using your service or buying your product regularly. Such systems are used by most large SAAS companies to identify those most at risk of customer churn.

Fraud Detection

Predictive analytics tools and data mining may be some of the most effective ways an e-commerce merchant, bank, and other businesses can detect fraud. The predictive analytics system analyzes past data, trends, and variables, and then provides smarter fraud score algorithms.

Predictive maintenance

To keep their assets in peak operating condition, manufacturers pay due diligence to the well-being of their machines. Predictive analytics paves the way for predictive maintenance and monitors the current state of machinery for any irregularities or potential downtimes.

Rolls-Royce, for example, monitors the aging of safety-critical I&C components with the help of Artificial Intelligence and predictive analytics software.

Healthcare diagnosis

Predictive analytics aims to inform clinicians of the possible events and outcomes, thus allowing them to prevent and treat health issues. It can be anything from detecting early signs of patient deterioration to delivering predictive care for at-risk patients.

Virtual assistants

Coupled with deep learning, predictive analytics empowers the accurate work of virtual assistants. Solutions like Siri, OK Google, and Alexa are the most prominent examples of predictive analytics tools.

They collect data, and through deep learning and predictive analytics, model the response and predict user behavior.

Now let’s have a look at what data analytics tools can fast-forward your data-centered transformation.

What Data Analytics Platforms And Tools Are In Vogue Right Now?

If you haven’t unearthed the potential of predictive modeling data and predictive analytics, you can use the list below to get acquainted with top suppliers in this field.

SAS Advanced Analytics - Best business intelligence tool for enterprise

SAS Advanced Analytics software is coupled with cutting-edge algorithms that assist businesses in solving even the most intractable problems and embracing predictive analytics.

SAS predictive analytics software has a full suite of analytics tools that guide your decision-making process and enable process automation at each data stage. Thus, you can rely on SAS advanced analytics for data and text mining, forecasts, data visualization, and machine learning.

Besides, key features of SAS data management solution include:

• Data Mining;
• Statistical Analysis;
• Forecasting;
• Text Analytics;
• Predictive Analytics;
• Optimization and Simulation.

In particular, SAS Data Mining capabilities underpin predictive modeling to uncover juicy opportunities and look into possible outcomes. Text Analytics helps sift through massive volumes of unstructured data to detect emerging trends and empowers the process of predictive analytics. Optimization and Simulation functionality models scenarios and offers recommendations to real-life challenges.

Among other pros of SAS are the easy-to-navigate drag and drop display and great visual dashboards. However, to use predictive analytics, you’ll need comprehensive training.

SAS Advanced Analytics Pricing Plans include a free trial and quote-based plans per user. In the second case, you’ll need to contact a vendor.

IBM SPSS Analytics Platform - Powerful analytics solution for researchers

No list of data and predictive analytics giants would be complete without IBM products. IBM SPSS Statistics is a cloud-based analytical software that empowers companies with granular statistical analysis of business data.

IBM SPSS Statistics is a go-to data predictive platform for lots of companies, research centers, and independent analytical agencies that solve unique business tasks.

Advanced statistical procedures and visualization in the SPSS system provide a reliable and user-friendly platform for processing subject data and solving complex business and research tasks. So whether it’s beating competitors or conducting research, you can count on this modeling tool.

The software supports the following statistical research methods:

• regression analysis,
• decision trees,
• forecasting,
• neural networks,
• categorization,
• combinatorial analysis,
• complex sampling and others.

Among other key features of the SPSS Statistics Analytics:

• The system provides customized functions and user interfaces that cater to different skill levels and assigned responsibilities.
• SPSS Statistics covers all major parts of the complex analytical process - from data preparation and management to predictive analytics and reporting.
• SPSS offers you sophisticated statistical capabilities for analyzing the exact outcome.
• SPSS provides business users with design, plotting, reporting, and presentation features for more clarity, making it easy to put your results in a digestible form for other stakeholders.

Pricing plans vary depending on the version. IBM SPSS Statistics is available for a free trial. It’s the main element of the SPSS Statistics suite that equips users with data access, data management, data preparation for analysis, data analysis, and report creation.

You can also extend your Based edition for $99.00 per user per month with three optional add-ons or buy perpetual and term licenses for Base, Standard, Professional and Premium packages, including options to customize your configuration.

SAP Predictive Analytics Platform - Ultimate software for Big Data

This predictive analytics software enables AI-powered analytics and aims to make it as accessible as possible to the general audience. With augmented analytics features, business owners can tap into predictive analytics products with no intervention from data scientists.

SAP Predictive analytics offers both on-premise implementations and a cloud-based version.

SAP Predictive Analytics opens up a wide range of possibilities:

• Conversational analytics - Natural Language Processing functionality allows business users to ask questions just like they would to their colleagues and get answers explained in natural language.
• Automated Machine Learning - self-service models that uncover relationships in your data and produce new insights with no manual input.
• Smart Insights - allow users to drill into their data visualizations without manual effort. Thus, they can look at the top contributors behind values or variances with just a click.
• Multifaceted set of features - allow you to automate data preparation, predictive modeling, and deployment, and easily monitor and re-train models.
• Uses integration with the R programming language to drive a variety of additional algorithms and custom scripts.

SAP is compatible with Microsoft Azure and provides users with multiple Microsoft Azure services with one Advantco adapter and with no coding needed.

You can either try SAP Predictive Analytics for free or request a demo.

Knime Analytics Platform - Analytics platform With intuitive Node-based workflow GUI

Knime Analytics Platform is an open-source framework for predictive analytics for data analysis. This framework allows you to implement the full cycle of data analysis including data reading from various data sources, transformation, and filtering, analysis, visualization, and export.

It’s considered the top platform among predictive analytics tools for business intelligence due to its statistics and specific calculations, automatic AI learning, and integrated predictive modeling.

Knime Analytics is an enterprise-grade tool for predictive analytics that relies on the might of the Eclipse platform. A powerful combination of other add-ons like Machine Learning algorithms and data mining assist business users in unraveling hidden data and gleaning business intelligence.

The main differentiator of KNIME is its modular workflow approach. The latter documents and stores the analysis process, while leaving results always available for the user.

Core KNIME features include:

• Streaming Analytics,
• Big Data Analytics,
• Statistical analysis,
• Reporting and analytics,
• Intelligent data analysis (IDA),
• Data Visualization,
• Machine Learning,
• Import/export of workflows (for exchanging with other KNIME users),
• API availability,
• Forecasting and predictive modeling.

Moreover, Knime Analytics offers over 2000 modules, a wide range of integrated tools, sophisticated algorithms, and ready-to-deploy examples. This predictive analytics software supports only desktops and is a great fit for both SMEs and enterprises. It works on Microsoft Azure and enables data science cloud deployment.

The drag and drop node function enables users to automate a huge number of database processes such as transactions, reading/writing, and others.

The service is available on an annual subscription that is based on 5 users and 4 cores for execution.

Rapidminer Studio - Top free predictive analytics software

RapidMiner is a powerful and multi-user analytics platform with an extensive library of 1500+ algorithms and tools that provide the best model for every use case.

RapidMiner Studio is an end-to-end data analytics tool. It is empowered by data modeling and machine learning that enable robust predictive modeling. The software is mounted on a fast drag and drop interface and offers active community support.

Users can access ready-made templates for common use cases, including customer churn, preventive maintenance, supply chain management, and others. Here, data scientists repurpose existing code and embed new functionality via pre-built extensions.

This analytics platform provides data mining and Machine Learning procedures for a spectrum of procedures, including:

• Predictive and statistical modeling,
• Data set loading and transformation,
• Analytics Data visualization,
• Scoring,
• Data sets transformation,
• NLP extension, and others.

Designed for data science teams, RapidMiner software amplifies the entire life cycle of data science, including data preparation to machine learning, visualization of results, model validation, predictive model deployment, and model optimization.

New users start with a 30-day trial of RapidMiner Studio Enterprise and then request pricing for their enterprise.

The Bottom Line

Data analytics has quickly made it to the front and center for businesses of all sizes. To follow the right path and meet the right future, you need to be able to gather, analyze data, and juice new insights. To do that, companies leverage business Intelligence services that bring easy data mining to the table.

In this post, we had a quick look at the most popular data analytics platforms and predictive analytics tools in 2021. We can tell that there are no clear champions since all of them target different pain points of data analysis. You should make a decision based on your business needs and budget.