Differentiating Through Event-Driven Analytics

A growing number of companies are taking advantage of event-driven analytics to help identify event patterns and their impacts on business trends and key performance indicators.

A growing number of companies are taking advantage of event-driven analytics to help identify event patterns and their impacts on business trends and key performance indicators. Savvy companies are tracking and acting quickly on such information via complex event processing in order to position themselves ahead of competitors or in some cases to identify and act quickly on customer or operational issues they’ve uncovered.

For example, let’s say a regional transportation company discovers that customer satisfaction has dropped five points in three of its key markets. A closer examination of the data reveals that customers are unhappy with a recent policy change that no longer allows them to purchase monthly bus passes in advance online, forcing them instead to wait on line at bus stations to obtain the passes on the first business day of each month.

By identifying and acting on the root causes of customer dissatisfaction quickly, the transportation company can reverse its policy decision, leading to improved customer satisfaction and, as a result, stem customer defection to rival carriers.

Effective event notification can also help decision makers identify and then act on events ahead of their competitors, especially those who monitor and respond to customer shifts and market developments in real time via business activity monitoring.

Consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) and manufacturers are able to use RFID technologies to help demand for certain products in specific locations. This can improve visibility into the supply chain, streamline production operations by automating workflows, and improve decision making.

For example, many CPGs and retailers use RFID tags to track and monitor inventories more cost-effectively and efficiently. If RFID data alerts a manufacturer of high-definition TV monitors that demand for certain models has increased in certain locations, the company can coordinate with retailers in its supply chain to adjust shipments accordingly.

Similarly, if other HDTV models aren’t selling as briskly in certain locations, the manufacturer and retailers can coordinate with each other to adjust shipments so that inventory isn’t clogging up a retailer’s distribution center or sitting in a retailer’s in-store warehouse.

Of course, in order for companies to achieve these types of capabilities and act on event-driven information in real time, they need to develop event-driven architectures, including a sense-and-respond environment that enables decision makers to identify emerging market trends and act quickly on behalf of customers and ahead of competitors. This can also include the use of enterprise feed servers to help aggregate and disseminate RSS and ATOM web feeds.

Once companies have developed some experience in this space, they can take this information a step further to develop the right offers at the right time for the right customers.