Contextual Prescriptive Discovery detects the impact uses optimization and simulation searches data for patterns to of environmental and algorithms to answer: reveal previously unknown circumstantial factors, “What should we do?” data relationships to answer: such as weather, to answer: “Could this happen?” “Does this affect what happens?” Predictive Descriptive Diagnostic applies statistical models aggregates and mines data examines data to identify and forecasting techniques to provide a summary of the likely cause to answer: to data to answer: historical data to answer: “Why did this happen?” “What is likely to happen?” “What has happened?” The demand for advanced analytics now spans the entire Percentage of investment in spectrum of company sizes. six categories of analytics % 28 25% 24% 24% 24% 24% 23% 23% % 22 % % % 21 % % 21 21 21 21 % 20 19% % 18 17% 17% 16% 16% % 12 % % 11 11 10% % 9 % % 8 8 % % 7 7 1–100 101–500 501–3,500 3,501–5,000 5,001–10,000 10,000+ Number of Employees The State of Salesforce Top Trends 13