Toronto, Ontario – Predictive Analytics World, the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, today announced the speaker line-up for the April 25-26, 2012 Toronto Conference (www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/toronto/2012).

Predictive Analytics World (predictiveanalyticsworld.com.com) is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today's commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors.

PAW Toronto promises to once again break records as the biggest cross-vendor predictive analytics event ever. PAW's program is packed with the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors and business thought leaders, including keynote addresses from Edward Nazarko, Client Technical Advisor, IBM and PAW Program Chair Eric Siegel, plus special session from industry heavy-weight John Elder, CEO & Founder, Elder Research, Inc.

Case Studies: How the Leading Enterprises Do It

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. You can hear from the horse's mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modeling, and what kind of business impact it delivers.

PAW's Toronto 2012 program is one of the richest and most diverse yet, featuring over 25 sessions across 1 track: "All Audiences,” -- so you can witness how predictive analytics is applied by Adobe, Alberta Motor Association, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Crawford & Company, Galorath, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pfizer, Topsy Labs, U.S. Federal Government and true-to-life anecdotes based on miscellaneous enterprise successes, plus insights from projects for Anheuser-Busch, Disney, HSBC, Pfizer, U.S. Govt., and others.

HOT TOPICS AND ADVANCED METHODS: PAW SF’s agenda covers ensemble models, financial services, fraud detection, healthcare analytics, human resources analytics, insurance, social data, software development cost estimation, text analytics and uplift modeling, including other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

WORKSHOPS: PAW also features several full-day pre- and post-conference workshops that complement the core conference program.

Join PAW and access the premier keynotes, sessions, workshops, exposition, expert panel, live demos during "Lab session," networking coffee breaks, reception, birds-of-a-feather lunches, brand-name enterprise leaders, and industry heavyweights in the business.

Cross-Industry Applications:

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, education, government, healthcare, high technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, social gaming, retail and telecommunications

And PAW covers the gamut of commercial applications of predictive analytics, including response modeling, customer retention with churn modeling, product recommendations, fraud detection, online marketing optimization, human resource decision-making, law enforcement, sales forecasting, and credit scoring.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors? No matter how you use predictive analytics, the story is the same: Predicatively scoring customers optimizes business performance. Predictive analytics initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

Rave Reviews:

"I came to PAW because it provides case studies relevant to my industry. It has lived up to the expectation and I think it's the best analytics conference I've ever attended!"

Shaohua Zhang, Senior Data Mining Analyst
Rogers Telecommunications

"Hands down, best applied analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work immediately. I've never been able to say that after any conference I've attended before!"

Jon Francis, Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

Read more: Articles and blog entries about PAW can be found at pawcon.com/pressroom.php

VENDORS. Meet the vendors and learn about their solutions, software and service. Discover the best predictive analytics vendors available to serve your needs - learn what they do and see how they compare

COLLEAGUES. Mingle, network and hang out with your best and brightest colleagues. Exchange experiences over lunch, coffee breaks and the conference reception connecting with those professionals who face the same challenges as you.

GET STARTED. If you're new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways to position it at your organization, there's no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics World. See what other companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

For more information: predictiveanalyticsworld.com/toronto/2012

Registration: http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/toronto/register.php -- THREE WAYS TO SAVE:

1. Super Early Bird Registration by February 10, 2012 – Save up to $400.

2. Take $150 off the Early Bird or the Advance Two Day Pass registration fee with this posting's promotional discount code: CUS150.

3. Save an additional $200 for each additional attendee from the same company registered at the same time.

View the PAW overview video:
www.pawcon.com/newyork/2011/video_about_predictive_analytics_world.php

What is predictive analytics? See the Predictive Analytics Guide:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/guide

If you'd like our informative event updates, sign up at:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/signup-us.php

To sign up for the PAW group on LinkedIn, see:
www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1005097

Follow PAW on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/pawcon/

For inquiries e-mail regsupport@risingmedia.com or call (717) 798-3495.

ALL ANALYTICS EVENTS:
PAW San Francisco: March 4-10, 2012 – www.pawcon.com/sanfrancisco
Text Analytics World SF: March 7, 2012 – www.tawcon.com/sanfrancisco/2012
PAW Toronto: April 25-26, 2012 – www.pawcon.com/toronto/2012/
PAW Chicago: June 25-26, 2012 - www.pawcon.com/chicago/2012/
PAW Germany - Nov 6-7, 2012 - www.pawcon.com
PAW London - Nov 27-28, 2012 - www.pawcon.com
PAW Videos: Available on-demand – www.pawcon.com/video

The 2nd Annual ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management (CEM) Benchmarking Study has identified six best practices for strong market performance and customer experience excellence:
• Coordination among managers of CEM methods.
• CEM as a determinant of corporate strategy.
• Presentation of survey results to all employees.
• Calculation of customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Action on survey results by owners of customer experience key drivers.
• Funding of cross-organizational collaboration.

These findings may be instrumental to the future of customer experience as the majority of companies have not yet implemented the above practices. Among the firms that are implementing most or all of these best practices, CEM-related business performance is much stronger and other CEM best practices are also more abundant.

Examples of business results attributed to customer experience management efforts include:

• 200% growth in profit over the past 4 years. (Chemicals)
• 200% increase in market share over the past 4 years. (Semiconductors)
• 20% improvement in revenue over the past year. (Telecommunications)
• Over $100M in new and existing opportunities influenced in 2011. (Software)
• New sales year over near have nearly tripled over the past 2 years. (Software)
• Increase in revenue 10% year over year. (Medical Devices/Pharmaceuticals)
• Double digit growth over the past 4 years. (Machinery)
• 15% reduction in churn over the past year. (Transportation/Logistics)

The most common methods in use to reach customer experience management goals are, respectively, customer touch-point improvements, customer surveys, first contact resolution of customer concerns, customer intelligence, and improvements to existing products.

Two-thirds of business-to-business (B2B) companies have realized a strong or moderate impact on the success of CEM efforts through employee engagement and employee empowerment to act in the best interest of customers. Employee engagement funding has increased over the past year for CEM efforts among at least a quarter of B2B firms in the areas of internal staffing, cross-organizational collaboration, training and conferences, process improvement, customer touch-points (including customer journey maps and customer life cycle management), and internal communications.

Similarly, a strong or moderate impact on the success of CEM is reported by two-thirds of study participants through the use of quality tools (such as six sigma, Pareto, etc.), executive sponsorship, and systems thinking (such as explicit recognition of connections and consequences across actions, processes, organizations, etc.). Customer engagement funding has increased over the past year for CEM efforts among at least a third of B2B firms in the areas of branding and campaigns, customer relationship management (CRM), customer data analysis, and customer surveys.

This annual study is the only global analysis of customer experience among business-to-business companies across all industries. It monitors the journey to world-class performance in how business-to-business firms (1) listen to customers, (2) view customers, (3) center employees on customers, and (4) center business on customers. It explores the motivations behind CEM and its linkages to corporate goals, strategy, culture, processes, and business success. Recommendations for stronger customer experience strategy, cross-organizational cooperation, and business results are provided in the study.

This study was sponsored by ClearAction and The Insight Advantage. The third annual B2B CEM study is scheduled for publication in mid-2012.

The Insight Advantage is a full-service research firm, providing a wide range of services (web surveys, focus groups, telephone interviews) to help companies implement customer research for ongoing insight into their customers' evolving needs and expectations. Jennifer Berkley Jackson, head of The Insight Advantage, is an extension faculty member of University of California - Santa Cruz.

ClearAction: is a customer experience consulting firm that helps organizations build enterprise-wide customer-focus and customer experience innovation. ClearAction's skills and pragmatic experience in customer satisfaction, quality, marketing, and organizational development catalyze value from customer feedback by applying it to daily decisions and processes company-wide. Lynn Hunsaker, head of ClearAction, is author of three ebooks: Innovating Superior Customer Experience, Metrics You Can Manage for Success, and Customer Experience Improvement Momentum.