Patent ID: 7555442

Claim:
A method to be practiced on a computer for generating usable business revenue performance targets, comprising: accessing, by first operation of said computer, data corresponding to a plurality of entities, the data including variables associated with each of the entities and wherein each of the entities has a corresponding observed value representing a performance level; identifying, by second operation of said computer, an under-marketed customer-revenue neighborhood including a first one of the entities and a number of other ones of the plurality of entities; calculating, by third operation of said computer, at least one of a maximal usable business revenue performance target and a minimal usable business revenue performance target for the under-marketed customer-revenue neighborhood, the calculated at least one target being associated with the performance level; and outputting, by fourth operation of said computer, via at least one of a display, a printer and a speaker, said at least one of said maximal usable business revenue performance target and said minimal usable business revenue performance target to a user of said usable business revenue performance targets; wherein the calculating includes selecting an exponential distribution function to represent a distribution of values corresponding to respective differences between the calculated at least one target and the observed values associated with the entities in the neighborhood, and estimating an exponential parameter associated with the exponential distribution; and wherein the calculating at least one of a maximal and minimal target further includes estimating the target using the largest observed value associated with an entity in the neighborhood and the estimate of the exponential parameter.