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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Each second counts in real-time analytics

Being able to react and act fast in today’s digital busi- to satisfy every potential customer for specific cam-
ness environment is an important factor in order to stay paigns and deals and make use of each event possible
competitive and profitable. However, the reaction time (Christmas, Mother's Day, start of school, etc.).
has gotten considerably shorter as well, particularly in
competitive markets. In fact, speed has become the However, this strategy leads to a dramatic increase in
deciding factor there. Information gathering, data analy- the number of products and campaigns. Hence, the
sis and appropriate response in the form of products, multitude of types of offers requires a strategic perfor-
services or business decisions are required in shorter mance management to know as quickly as possible,
and shorter cycles and are rewarded by the market. which products are accepted and which are not. In or-
der to be able to take into account all data from an in-
This is specifically apparent in the high frequency trad-
ing of the financial sector, where banks, trading and creasingly fragmented environment (data from IT and
investment houses pay tens of millions of dollars per accounting systems, ERP and CRM, channel-specific
year for having a competitive information advantage of data from an increasing number of customer touch
just a few milliseconds. points, social media, etc.), real-time analysis tools are
indispensable. Only that way the performance can be
All the hassle is for one simple reason: Today it is no monitored, as well as patterns and trends identified ear-
longer only the computing power that counts, but also ly and promptly, and then decisions can be make. Not
the hardware establishing the connection between two to mention that mistakes can be avoided, such as cam-
computers, which can limit the speed of information paigns that do not work, can be stopped before they
processing, especially since the stock market no longer
only earns with transaction fees, but the so-called co- cause excessively high costs and pricing or product
location business, too. Therefore, banks and trading presentations can be readjusted in time.
houses take lodgings with their servers directly in cen-
ters of the stock exchange to minimize the line route The world is used to getting everything now, as tech-
and to guarantee the fastest possible order execution. nology is speeding up the ways consumers receive in-
formation and interact with their friends. People are
Similar patterns are found in other industries, such as getting used to having search delivered in real time,
telecommunications, IT, and even the retail sector: video on demand, news the second it happens or in-
Whoever anticipates customer needs first makes the stant updates on their friends’ status. The irrevocable
business – exclusively! Moreover, all that’s needed to changes in our industry are obvious and marketers
succeed are Big Data applications and real-time analy- have to catch up with the expectations of today’s con-
sis tools to be able to detect patterns in customer be-
havior and to analyze them without delay. Based on sumer.
these evaluations, corresponding projections or deci-
sions can be made easily. The well-known saying “Time is money!” is more up-to-
date than ever, as the attention span in the vast digital
The value of such real-time analysis tools are highly universe of information is getting shorter and shorter. It
appreciated in the telecommunications industry and is survival of the fittest, where the best-equipped mar-
mobile communications respectively, too. Especially, keter with the most relevant message wins – hence
since all market participants are fighting with similar each second counts to get the attention of the consum-
problems: Migration, non-renewal of lucrative multi-year er. Being slow to respond or perceived as disconnected
contracts, and a saturation of the market of nearly 100 from real life can be deadly for marketers, so real-time
percent. Increased competition has led further to the analytics will definitely grow exponentially in the future.
situation that offers get more and more tailored to ◊
smaller customer segments, with the goal of being able
By Daniela La Marca
4 Asian eMarketing July 2015: Real (Right)-Time Marketing
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