Confirmation on a take-out sample is much more methodologically reliable but has limited efficiency and ignores the largest sources of variability. That is, a particular promotion will not be run again. Models developed from it will be valuable only if they are useful for other promotions. After the passage of time and the vagaries of alternative promotion protocols, the largest non-specific source of variation was the client. All of the types of potential drivers played some role in the development of the scoring models, except the drug-therapy category, i.e., type and cost of drug, factors for which initial expectations were quite high.
Current research continues on the search for relevant patterns.
It may well be that the greatest benefit to be derived from this type of information will be in the refinement of the value estimate for a given transaction. Mass. The tool is capable of forecasting e-commerce demand by week, by client and by transaction. The tool supported development of e-commerce forecasts for the year 2000. Acknowledgements and Dedication We greatly benefited from interactions with Jill Blank, John Daly, Stu Feldman, Amy Foley, Andy Kuo and Gerald Silverman of Merck-Medco Managed Care, L.L.C. and Khasha Dehnad of AIMS Consulting. The authors wish to dedicate this article to the memory of our good colleague and friend, Dr. Gerald B. Silverman.