Case #6: Predictive Analytics better than with AI
- Marco Schlimpert
- Aug 11
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
How AI and Predictive Analytics unfold their full power in combination with Systemic Constellation
The Beauty of Mathematical Models
I studied mechanical engineering. Combined with business administration. At the technical university, we learned: For every technical problem, there is a solution. That's why our curriculum included plenty of mechanics, mathematics, thermodynamics, and physics. I really enjoyed these subjects – and I still find them fascinating today.
The logic is simple: You experimentally observe input and output data in a system, figure out the relationships, create a model, verify the result, and even make predictions for future outcomes.
Example: Heating a metal rod. I hold a metal rod at one end and heat the rod on the other side to 1,000 degrees Celsius. I want to know how long it takes before I drop the rod because it gets too hot. An example of applying the one-dimensional heat conduction equation:
Where T is temperature, t is time, and x is the length of the rod. Alpha is the so-called thermal conductivity coefficient of the metal, i.e., how well the metal conducts heat – an experimentally determined value.
That's the theory. But there's also practice. This often doesn't match theory, following the motto: Theory, practice, and reality. There's always something unforeseen.
What do you do? You account for this with the so-called residual variable (or reality). The formula then looks like this:
Wonderful, now we have a perfect formula. Let's collect lots of data, calculate it with high computing power, and we can make predictions.
This example is so present in my mind because it was an actual exam question at university. The additional task: Visualize the temperature distribution with a C++ program.
Back then, it was just one example among others for me. I never thought that 25 years later, I would use this example to explain AI relationships and intuition.
The Problem Between Theory and Reality
The mentioned formula contains the thermal conductivity coefficient. This is an experimentally determined value. It's not calculated – because to determine it, current methods of physics weren't sufficient. Today we know: This can be described with quantum physical methods. But we don't do that, since it's good enough for "daily" use. However: It's not exact.
The residual variable (or reality) is not mathematically uniquely determinable neither. When something changes in external circumstances, for whatever reason, it cannot be represented mathematically. Thus, we already have two elements in this simple equation that cannot be determined with 100% accuracy.
When Simple Physics Gets Complicated, What Happens in Business?
Indeed, this example is comparatively very trivial. Now let's imagine the economy, or the business activities of a company. There are many more relationships that are much more complex. Of course, you can also create such formulas and have them calculated with high computing power. Often the results are very convincing. However, they never consider one thing – no matter how precise the methods want to be: the unforeseen, the reality. Or those pieces of information that come like intuitive flashes of insight from the future.
The best predictive analytics models, no matter how good the different data are, no matter how high the computing power, they always have to reckon with the residual variable "R".
Take the example of the captain of a large cruise ship:
He has all the data, from the driving data so far to the weather radar. Based on this data, he can predict the further route with high probability. But what if an unknown waterfall suddenly appears? Or an iceberg? His intuition gives him the route.
You might rightly say: A waterfall in the middle of the sea – that never happens. The iceberg was there before and led to a catastrophe. However, let's take the waterfall as a metaphor for: pandemic, tariffs, energy crisis, inflation, geopolitical issues. Can you think of anything else?
No predictive analytics, no AI in the world can foresee this. Because: They process data from the past or models from the past. What if this data changes? What if the models from the past are no longer applicable to the future? This happens daily, and it's called scientific research. Because: A theory, a model is only valid until the opposite is proven.
What to Do? Intuition as a Systematic Process: Systemic Constellation as a Complement to Predictive Analytics
While predictive analytics exclusively learns from past data, systemic constellation enables access to emergent, future dynamics – it captures information that comes from the future. Or put differently: intuitions beyond numbers, data, and facts.
Systemic Constellation is a systematic process complementing predictive analytics for the unpredictable. It makes future dynamics and emergent patterns visible before they manifest in measurable data.
A Practical Example: Budget Planning for a Telecommunications Company
A telecommunications company struggled with their annual budget planning. Despite detailed market analyses and sophisticated forecasting models, the predictions were regularly wrong. The Excel spreadsheets became increasingly complex, the planning cycles longer and longer – but accuracy didn't improve.
In this situation, we decided on a systemic constellation. Instead of endless columns of numbers, we set up the essential business elements: the four key markets of the company, the products, the available resources, and the strategic options.
The astounding result: The constellation immediately revealed that it wasn't the detailed planned cost items or the revenues of individual products that were decisive, but the dynamics between the four key markets. A particular market that had previously received little attention acted as a catalyst for all others. This insight had been invisible in no data analysis.
The constellation lasted only one and a half hours but delivered deeper insights than weeks of number analysis. The result: A complete realignment of resource allocation – something the traditional budget process would never have revealed. As well as: what revenue is realistic and what result emerges from it.
Unlike Excel spreadsheets, which are often only fully understood by controllers, the systemic constellation made the dynamics of the business immediately experienceable for all participants. Executives from various areas literally saw and felt how their decisions are connected and influence each other.
Artificial Intelligence x Intuitive Intelligence = Extraordinary Success
Mathematical models – and AI is based on such models – will never be able to fully predict the future. Systemic constellation can.
The best predictive analytics systems work with data from the past and assumptions that can change at any time. The residual variable or reality R remains their eternal blind spot. They capture the measurable but miss the emergent.
Systemic constellation, on the other hand, captures emergent dynamics, information from the system beyond analytical sensors, and their dependencies before they manifest in key figures. It makes the "incalculable" visible and transforms it into strategic action options.
The companies of the future won't have to choose between conventional predictive analytics and systemic constellations. They will intelligently combine both methods: The precision of mathematics for the measurable and the wisdom of systems for information from the future.
Ready for the Next Step?
Discover why systemic constellation is the ideal complement to your current data models in your company. It helps your organization not only think through various future scenarios but also foresee the most likely future - long before it appears as actual numbers. Even if you do not have a data model yet, systemic constellation is the methodology of choice to forecast the future.
As an experienced expert in Leadership Transformation and mentor, I support you in identifying the blind spot - before the scenarios occur. It requires only: Open Mind, Open Heart, and Open Will. And Systemic Constellation in the form of exploring future events.
Together, we create "Clarity beyond Strategy".
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