Predictive analytics is the next generation of analytics which is important for the engineering and construction industry. Data makes up the building blocks for analytics. But instead of using data analytics to make sense of the past — to understand what we have done and what trends we can pick out from our past behaviour — predictive analytics uses data to predict what is likely to happen. When you use predictive analytics, you let the data tell you the answers that you may not be aware of; that are not obvious to you.  You’re looking at data you may not be collecting yourself. Target is pouring over data and finding the themes, patterns and relationships to build predictive models to achieve business outcomes.