Q: What is your organization's level of need for real-time data in each of the following areas?
Author Zubin Dowlaty was not surprised to see that the key areas of interest in analyzing real time data streams were "weighted toward areas where customers directly interact with the enterprise: customer service, sales, IT, and marketing functions. It's interesting to note that respondents indicate that direct channels to the customer, such as customer service (96%) and sales (89%), are their priority for timely data. The indirect channels, such as supply chain (69%), R&D (63%), and manufacturing (44%), are not deemed as significant. Intuitively, this makes sense, as the real-time data stream paradigm is in its adolescent stage in most enterprises; as such, most direct routes are prioritized, customer-generated data. However, the indirect areas, such as supply chain and manufacturing, where utilizing sensors and machine-generated data is the norm, will soon find many use cases for more timely data as well, as enterprises mature with the capability of real-time data systems."
* Excerpted from "Real-Time Data Streams: An Analytics Practitioner's POV" (
), Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 12, No. 3.