Real Time Intelligence: Information Is Power
Today, business success isn’t just about having a better product or getting it to market faster. Although those factors are important, the major player is information. The acquisition of real-time data and the ability to analyze, optimize, and forecast is how companies become successful and stay successful.
What Is Real Time Intelligence?
Real Time Intelligence is also called real time business intelligence (RTBI). It refers to the idea of collecting information about business operations in real time and using that information in decision-making.
The key to getting the most use out of real time intelligence is to act on that information as fast as possible while the information is timely. Company decision-makers have the space to make adjustments, avoiding unnecessary disruptions or downtime.
Where Does the Information Come From?
The information is in digital form and can come from a variety of sources. It could be from public sources like the news and social media feeds or internal methods like email communication. Data can also be gathered from internal control systems and applications.
Information is collected from monitoring architecture such as sensors and RFID tracking, which can provide real-time updates and notifications about the movement of a company’s assets, particularly reusable ones.
What Is Latency?
As we’ve stated, information is more useful and powerful when acted upon quickly. Latency refers to the time it takes from the creation of the information until action is taken. Some latency will always exist, but the more that latency is reduced, the more a business benefits.
Technology has helped reduce the amount of time it takes for information to be collected and stored in a data warehouse. Data analysis is another area of latency; this is another area improved by newer technology and the introduction of intelligence systems performing real time analytics, a function once accomplished purely by humans. The processed information must still be handed off to human staff to make and implement business decisions.
How Is the Information Analyzed?
Typically, the information is fed through dashboard software that performs business analytics and allows the user to make informed decisions. Different businesses will be concerned with different metrics, and these types of software provide visualizations depending on the data required.
A restaurant, for example, would be concerned with the number of drinks ordered with meals and the wait times for food. A call center would be concerned with the time spent resolving a caller’s issue. Health care providers need to know how long patients are waiting to receive care. Business intelligence technology performing data analytics gives business owners the operational intelligence they require to keep their businesses running smoothly.
Capture Valuable Data
Real-time intelligence is a way to apply business intelligence capabilities to data as it’s happening, rather than after the fact. While there are many ways to build a real-time intelligence system (and each has its own advantages and disadvantages), there are also some core principles that all systems should follow.
Real-time intelligence must be delivered on time while adjusting for disruptions and downtime without negatively affecting the organization or its stakeholders and having the right people and systems in place so that you can make informed decisions based on what you know about current events.
Using tracking technology from RTI, your business can obtain important data about your reusable assets. Get valuable insight into where they are and how fast they are moving, allowing you to perform important supply chain management tasks to keep your business moving. Contact RTI today!
