How real-time analytics is reshaping decision-making, competitiveness, and customer experience
Modern tools like Microsoft Power BI have revolutionised the way we analyse and visualise data. So much so that we’ve almost forgotten that we are looking at historical data that can be days, weeks, or even months old. After years of having no alternative, we’ve become desensitised to the delay between data collection and making sense of what it means.
But in today’s fast-paced and data-driven world, decisions are only as good as the data they are based on. That means that reducing data latency is more important than ever. When it comes to data, speed really does matter.
Having real-time or near real-time data has become a source
of competitive advantage, a way of improving products and services, and a way
of staying relevant. Data latency is no longer just an IT issue, it is now firmly
on the boardroom agenda.
One company that has transformed its product offering with real-time
analytics is The New York Times. By migrating to the cloud, and getting real-time
data about how their readers behave, they have improved their content and tailored
it to user preferences. The result has been greater reader loyalty and greater
relevance in an industry that has had to make huge adjustments from print to
digital. Whilst the New York Times is a multi-billion dollar business, the
principles they are using are universal.
In the past there were good reasons for analysing data in
batches: processing streaming data was complex and expensive, in memory storage
didn’t exist, and cloud computing was less mature. But these technical barriers
have now gone. And new technologies like Microsoft Fabric make it much easier
for businesses to benefit from real-time data analytics. Microsoft Azure enables
businesses to migrate to the cloud incrementally, delivering business value at
every step.
If you’re exploring how to reduce data latency in your
business — or how to build real-time dashboards from streaming data — we’d love
to help. We are experienced developers for the Azure data platform and can turn ideas into robust data solutions for a range of needs. Why not get in touch for a no-obligation exploratory chat? It can only speed things up ....
