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Extracting business value from fast data

Kgaogelo Letsebe
By Kgaogelo Letsebe, Portals journalist
Johannesburg, 11 May 2018
Rob Godlonton, CEO of EOH's ICT business.
Rob Godlonton, CEO of EOH's ICT business.

Companies looking to make headway against their competitors should be looking to create real-time personalised value for customers, with the help of fast data generated in real-time.

This is the word from Rob Godlonton, CEO of EOH's ICT business, speaking at the second annual EOH Connect conference held in Sandton, Johannesburg, this week.

Themed "Fast data: Business at the speed of thought", the conference explored how data can improve and accelerate the digitisation process in business.

According to Godlonton, the difference between big data and fast data is that while big data is large, vast data sets that inundate a business on a day-to-day basis, fast data is large data that is generated in real-time.

"The growing role of business will be to understand how to use fast data to power business-critical applications and find innovative ways to deliver personalised service to customers."

In a separate session, Gregory Fullard, head of EOH Digital Platoon, noted that through the collection of fast data, firms will be able to turn customer information into real-time personalised experiences.

"As we continue to acquire intelligent, real-time insights into our customers and their desired experiences, we're able to segment these insights with greater precision; suggesting that we are able to target customers individually, with the best offering, at the right time, in the right place.

"Real-time personalised experiences are the Holy Grail of customer experience. Until now, the idea of delivering a customised solution, at scale, would have been viewed as a contradiction. Thanks to edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics, businesses now have the capability to provide these customised consumer experiences at scale," he noted.

Fullard explained that the key factor in creating valuable real-time personalisation of services is the need to swiftly analyse large volumes of data at the point of creation.

"This is something Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world, has been doing well for some time. Equally, multinationals Virgin Atlantic and Coca-Cola are using analytics to enhance customer experiences, pre and post the point of brand interaction. Without this, companies cannot create meaningful, intentional interactions with their customers."

Fullard noted that some of the key themes in companies today include agility, velocity, scalability and efficiency. "But also relevance. Arguably, continually creating 'relevance' is at the heart of an outstanding customer experience. Fast data is propelling companies forward at a pace that many are not ready for. Companies need to employ the technologies required to manage this data effectively, and turn that data into real-time actionable insight."

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