Like the marketing and sales function, the financial operations of a company can also benefit greatly from the use of advanced analytics. As it turns out, very sophisticated tools and techniques in this area have already been developed by the financial services industry. Consider just one function of the finance department of many companies: assessing the credit-worthiness of customers.

The granting of credit in the consumer, industrial, institutional, and governmental environments is a crucial part of the global economy. All players in these markets need to understand the risks that they are undertaking, as well as the financial profiles and histories of the entities to whom they are considering offering credit-based deals. Every organization that grants credit to another party must have a threshold or limit at which they draw the line on risk. For automobile loans, that threshold could be based on a person’s credit history or credit score, income level...