Title: Timeseries Forecasting as a Service Speaker: Thanassis Spyrou (https://linkedin.com/in/thanassis-spyrou-92911959/) Date: Thursday, November 14, 2019 Event: https://meetup.com/Athens-Big-Data/events/265957761/

1. November 2019
Timeseries Forecasting as a Service

2. Agenda
1. Who we are & What we do
2. Big Data & more: Our Point of View
3. Forecasting in Real Life
4. Demo Time

3. PwC 3
Who we are & What we do
1

4. 4PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
Sergios Koutavidis
Senior Manager,
Data & Analytics
PwC Greece
Iosif Beloukas
Director,
Head of Data & Analytics
PwC Greece
Thanassis Spyrou
Manager,
Data & Analytics
PwC Greece
With you today…
Angeliki Chatzimoschou
Associate,
Data & Analytics
PwC Greece
Filip Duricic
Associate,
Data & Analytics
PwC Greece

5. 5PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
Our Data & Analytics team at a glance
is currently
consisting of more
than 25
professionals,
providing services
within Greece and
abroad
PwC Greece
Data & Analytics
(D&A) team
Our Assets
Digital Transformation
Professionals
Data
Scientists
Data & Software
Engineers
Project
Managers
Visualisation
Experts
Proprietary IP
(Products,
Algorithms)
Big Data
Infrastructure
Product
Managers
PwC Network
Analytics
Professionals

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Our capabilities range across the whole spectrum of D&A operations, leveraging advanced
analytics methods and innovative technologies…
Integration – Data Transformation
Advanced Analytics
We unify various data sources,
perform ETL processes to
prepare them for analysis
We use statistical, machine
learning, computational and
optimisation techniques
Business Intelligence
We leverage a range of
analytical tools to uncover
insight
Big Data
We design end-to-end solutions
adjusted to business needs
Azure
Data
Factory

7. 7PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
…aiming to offer services of the highest quality through a state-of-the-art operating model
Azure DevOps
Forecast Sales
(Project O)
Calculate
Something
(Project N)
Calculate
Something (Project L)
Calculate
Something
Deployment
eventevent
event
event
event
event
event
event
Stories
Architecture
Code

8. PwC 8
Big Data & more: Our Point of View
2

9. PwC
PwC Turbocharge your cloud journey through Containers, Kubernetes and DevSecOps
A Perfect
Cloud
Technology
Storm
is forcing
organisations
to respond AI/ML
Serverless
DevSecOps
Kubernetes
Microservices
Containers
9PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
Big Data

10. 10PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
How the latest trends will lead to the next generation enterprise: Our approach
● Portable across platforms
● Lightweight
● Simple and Fast deployment
● Organized around business
capabilities
● Modular, Resilient & API driven
● Seamlessly integrates with
DevSecOps
● Delivery velocity @ scale
● Early detection and correction of
code vulnerabilities
● Promotes culture of openness
CONTAINERS MICROSERVICES KUBERNETES
● Opensource
● Provides rich feature sets
● Suitable for enterprise application
deployments
DEVSECOPS
● Promotes no-ops environment
● Pay for value
● Inherently scalable architecture
● Adaptable to any data related structure
and problem changes
● API driven approach
● Deep integration with Azure analytics
and security servicesSERVERLESS AI/ML
● Optimised data architecture design –
microservices-based approach
● Automated and scalable data
processing and modelling
● Compatibility across technologiesBig Data
Adopting innovative
technologies at
scale can drive true
business
outcomes…
✓ Scalable and adaptive infrastructure
✓ Automated, strategic-based decision-
making, utilizing large volumes of data
✓ Enhanced System & Modelling
Performance ✓ Cloud-based resource cost
management
✓ Technology agnostic enterprise
solutions

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Forecasting in Real Life
3

12. 12PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
Forecasting in
Business:
The right
questions to
ask each
organisation
12PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup
❑ How predictable is your demand?
❑ Are you using the optimal algorithms?
❑ Could you forecast at a micro level?
❑ What new data could you use to improve accuracy?
❑ What is the best accuracy you can hope to achieve?

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So, how can an organisation optimise their accuracy to drive true business outcomes…
By continually
testing and
refining how
they forecast…
Segment demand into predictable micro clusters at SKU and location level
Test and assign the optimal algorithms to each micro cluster
Define where human intervention is required and where the machine works best
Continually test impact of exogenous factors
Learn from each planning iteration and measure how close you got to optimal accuracy

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…and ultimately harness data-led insight in the whole spectrum of decision-making?
Forecasting may enable not only
strategic decision-making by
facilitating decisions that may impact
an organisation’s demand planning
strategy and the realisation of its
marketing objectives…
…but also operational decision-
making by managing decisions on
day-to-day operations, often in real-time,
aiming to achieve a new, sustainable
and significantly higher operational
efficiency level

15. PwC 15
Demo Time
4

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[Presentation Title]
#PwC 16
Intelligent Forecasting Platform

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Demo Time: Providing rapid demand planning insights in a volatile world, aiming to enable
organisations make optimal decisions and reinforce their growth rate
Challenge
Enable organisations make optimal
decisions about their supply chain
and satisfy their customer needs
through the production of accurate
forecasts.
Solution
• The IFP is comprised of an automated time series
forecasting engine, whose job is to discover, train and
make predictions using the best time series model for
any given time series.
• The second core component of the platform is a web
application, through which a user can configure,
diagnose, execute, visualise and interpret forecasts
created using the engine.
Benefit
The solution allows organisations
to gain insights on future demand
through a fully automated
solution, which could be
integrated with any existing ERP
and CRM systems, requiring
minimum human intervention.

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[Presentation Title]
#
Our solution at a glance
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Data quality
validation
Add client-specific
business intelligence
Pre-processing
steps
Generate
consensus forecast
Perform data quality
checks and verify desired
data quantity in order to
deliver a base forecast
within 2-5 business days.
Perform anomaly
detection and smoothing
for a client dataset as well
as timeseries
categorisation.
Identify market or client-
specific factors that need
to be taken into account to
improve forecast accuracy
(indicatively: SKU
combinations,
competition, temperature,
GDP growth index, promo
calendar, etc.).
Produce the best possible
forecast per SKU
combination.
Provide forecasting and
model performance
through BI dashboarding
tool.

19. PwC 19
[Presentation Title]
#PwC 19
Real-time Streaming

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Demo Time: Measure, analyse and visualise sensor-data from wind turbines in real-time,
aiming to produce alerts in case of potential high-risk conditions
Challenge
Enabling organisations prevent
machine failures or other risks as
early as possible, through sensor-
data monitoring, in order to quickly
take counter-actions and assure
production performance.
Solution
Technology and Analytics technics used for the
implementation of our solution:
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Live Streaming
• Big Data
• Advanced ML based Forecasting algorithms
• AI based correction actions
• Cloud infrastructure
Benefit
• Processing and insights of
large volumes of data
• Real-time monitoring
• Quick execution of forecasting
• Prevention actions based on
automated processes
• Suggestion of
preventive/corrective actions

21. PwC 21
[Presentation Title]
#
Our solution at a glance
Sensors measure
Temperature, Humidity
& Pressure data, rating
and classifying results
using a combination of
critical values Data is loaded in a
cloud-based Azure
infrastructure
Live streaming &
processing of
actual data using
Big Data
technologies
Live ML based
prediction of
potential future
data Rear-time
monitoring using
geolocation
features
AI based corrective
actions algorithms
are produced if a
critical combination
of values is
identified.
21PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup

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The secret of change is to
focus all of your energy,
not on fighting the old,
but on building the new."
Socrates
22

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Q & A
PwC – Athens Big Data Meetup

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Get in touch with us
For more information, please contact:
Iosif Beloukas
Head of Data & Analytics,
Director, PwC Greece
E-mail: iosif.beloukas@pwc.com
Konstantinos Kanistras
Lead Data Scientist | Customer Insight,
Manager, PwC Greece
E-mail: Konstantinos.kanistras@pwc.com
Sergios Koutavidis
Lead Data Architect,
Senior Manager, PwC Greece
E-mail: sergios.koutavidis@pwc.com
Thanassis Spyrou
D&A Product Asset & Innovation Lead,
Manager, PwC Greece
E-mail: thanassis.spyrou@pwc.com
Panagiotis Ballis-Papanastasiou
Lead Data Scientist | Financial Modeling,
Manager, PwC Greece
E-mail: Panagiotis.ballis-papanastasiou@pwc.com

25. 25PwC
Thank you!
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