September 29, 2016
Added Functionality and Free Trial Lowers Many Data Science Hurdles
McLean, VA – An algorithm that predicts consumer retail trends down to the style of sweater that’s most likely to sell out this fall. And another that could transform heart disease diagnosis. Buried in the volumes of data we produce every day are answers to questions that may fuel a retailer’s success. Or insights that can help to solve challenges that have plagued us for decades. But until society becomes more conversant in analytics and data science, this transformative knowledge will remain out of reach. With updates to its Sailfish platform, Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH) is leading commercial and government organizations to learn more from their data and to spur business and mission success. For the first time, users can try their own hand at analytics by accessing Booz Allen Hamilton’s Sailfish trial that is fully available to the public.
Through work at the highest levels of the federal government, military, and dozens of Fortune 500 companies, Booz Allen’s team of 600+ data scientists have developed algorithms to improve vehicle safety, increase access to vaccines, and combat human trafficking. This experience has been applied to the Sailfish solution, first introduced in January 2016, to deliver a number of improvements, including:
- Easy Analytics for Beginners and Experts: New application protocol interfaces (APIs) make it easier to move data and information back and forth between the three different Sailfish solutions: Sailfish Exchange℠, Sailfish Explore℠ and Answers on Demand. As a result, identifying, analyzing and taking action with data is highly intuitive, even for users without formal data science or analytics training. This means that business leaders can find trends and patterns in their own data, without a team of engineers for help.
- Access to Open Data Sets in a Collaborative Environment: The updated Sailfish platform features access to additional public source data sets on a variety of topics, including Presidential campaign expenditures, adverse drug events, and natural disasters. Organizations can collaborate with one another as they share, comment and generate actionable insights from Open data. This community based approach to generating actionable insights from Open Data translates into digital experiences that help citizens benefit from Open Data.
- More Powerful Analytics Modules: For seasoned data scientists, Sailfish offers new, more powerful analytical modules, along with R integration which will let data scientists freely create and integrate their own algorithms within Sailfish.
“Sailfish breaks down the barriers between traditional analytics and management teams, allowing businesses to function as a cohesive unit and be smarter and more efficient in their decision making,” said Booz Allen Senior Vice President Josh Sullivan, a leader of the firm’s data science team. “In a time when the availability of skilled data scientists lags way behind the demand for analytics, we’ve specifically engineered Sailfish to allow more professionals to assist their organization in the pursuit of informed decision making without needing heavy formal training.”
The updates to Sailfish extend Booz Allen’s leadership to democratize access to data science skills and big data analytics technologies. Announced earlier this year, Sailfish’s three distinct solutions are:
- Sailfish Exchange: a highly visual social-media driven data library allowing for easy uploading, searching and sharing of data sets
- Sailfish Explore: a natural language driven application enabling easy analysis of data sets found in Sailfish Exchange or any enterprise data set
- Answers on Demand: a support platform that connects users with Booz Allen’s data science workforce for expert assistance
Booz Allen is committed to driving innovation in data science and analytics. In 2014, the firm launched Explore Data Science, an online training program geared toward a wide range of data science students. In 2015, Booz Allen released the latest iteration of The Field Guide to Data Science, an industry resource of data science best practices and use cases. For more information on the firm’s data analytics capabilities, go to BoozAllen.com/DataScience
To learn more about the Sailfish suite of products or to request a free trial, go to Sailfish.BoozAllen.com
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