Data Backup Digest

Originally introduced in December 2014, Watson Analytics is a cloud-oriented smart data discovery service that leverages predictive analysis in a visual manner that is clear, concise and incredibly intuitive. Based on the natural spoken language, Watson Analytics is already garnering a lot of attention from industry professionals and consumers alike. In fact, Watson Analytics has already received over 40,000 registrations from users located across the globe.

Marc Altshuller, vice president with Watson Analytics, describe the effect Watson Analytics can have on an enterprise. He was quoted as saying: “Watson Analytics puts the power of predictive analytics into the hands of non-data scientists and people from across the enterprise, to generate insights and make data-driven decisions, often for the first time.”

Benco Dental, for example, has already seen results after using Watson Analytics for only a few months. A distributor of dental supplies and hardware, Benco Dental has always been at the head of their game. Not only were they the first supplier within the dental sector to create an online ordering portal via Windows, which they achieved all the way back in 1995, but their early adoption of Watson Analytics is sure to drive even greater business growth in the future.

In the past, the team with Benco Dental used their recorded sales data as a means of monitoring industry trends, ensuring inventory levels and delivering products in a timely manner. After they used the free version of Watson Analytics, however, they were able to uncover factors that they had never even considered.

Don Trybulski, marketing analyst with Benco Dental, spoke about how they’ve been able to utilize Watson Analytics. "The conventional wisdom is that a quantity break becomes more effective as the net cost of the items gets lower. A customer probably won't order four handpieces if they only need three; but they might buy four boxes of disposable gloves, because they don't cost too much, and they'll probably use them eventually anyway. However, Watson Analytics showed us that this expected behavior is simply not reflected in the sales data. Even for lower-value items, a high percentage of customers will order three items instead of taking advantage of the quantity break at four. That's potentially a revolutionary insight that could help us redefine our pricing strategy going forward.

Availability

Watson Analytics is currently available in three separate editions. The basic version of Watson Analytics, which supports up to 500 MB of data storage, is available free for all users. Watson Analytics Personal, which offers 2 GB of data storage and analysis of as many as 25,000 tweets per dataset, is available at a cost of $30 per user per month. The final version, Watson Analytics Professional, provides up to 100 GB of data storage and the ability to analyze as many as 50,000 tweets per dataset. Watson Analytics Professional is available at a cost of $80 per user per month.

To learn more information about IBM’s Watson Analytics or any of the company's other products or services, please visit their official website at www.ibm.com.