Wiley & sas business Series

   Personal Benefi ts  
  Benefi ts that accrue to individuals within the organization. 
   Petabyte  
  An SI-defi ned measure of data storage equal to 1,000 terabytes. For com-
parison, a single commercial single-sided dual-layer DVD can store up to 
8.54 gigabytes. 
   Precrime  
  A term coined by author Philip K. Dick, it describes a group tasked with 
using prescience to identify and prevent crimes that have not yet occurred. 
   Predictive Modeling  
  A process by which the underlying relationships behind an outcome are 
identifi ed, quantifi ed, and used to create predictions for new information. 
These are often statistically based. A common example is using informa-
tion about customers who have canceled their phone service to statistically 
identify and quantify the major leading indicators that suggest someone 
will cancel. These indicators are then translated into a scoring process 
and used to score existing customers, helping to identify those who are 
at a high probability of cancellation. Once identifi ed, they can then be 

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contacted before they cancel, potentially making a unique retention offer 
to discourage them from going to a competitor.