There are many signals and events that emerge in and around organizations. Now add to that the signals that are merging in a real-time fashion in the geopolitical world and markets that are changing daily. In addition, there will be many signals coming from the billions of things in the Internet of Things (IoT). If you don’t have a headache thinking about this right now, let me add some more complication for you. Like the “Transformers” in the highly successful movie series from Paramount Pictures, signals can disguise themselves, so they look normal. Now, not only do organizations have to capture many more signals to process, but they also have to figure out which ones really matter as they can transform into an opportunity or a threat. Once recognized, these business patterns will require proper analysis, critical decisions, and appropriate actions.
Recognize Important Business Patterns Hiding Among Us
Turning Signals into Patterns
While individual signals could mean something to organizations as they could be leading indicators, it is generally true that business patterns emerge from a number of signals sensed over time. This means that some signals will have to be saved for a duration to look for signal pairings. This will require a rigorous business rule capability that can apply logic to saved signals. Once patterns emerge, notifications to appropriate resources (human or otherwise) are sent to further act on the sensed pattern.
Dealing with Expected Patterns
Proactively looking for expected patterns will become commonplace in the digital business, but there will be many more signals and patterns to deal with over time. These are signals and patterns that have been deemed important based on experience or predictive analysis. Some of them will be operational and require adjustments for processes and applications that are in production. Others will be indicators of a need for changes in policy that might affect the rules and constraints of operational systems and management practices.
Teasing Out Unexpected Patterns
As good as organizations get with predictive analytics and scenario planning, there will always be conditions that emerge for which there are no known decisions and actions. Catching the emerging and unexpected patterns is tricky and requires sampling and experimentation. Some of the patterns will be discovered after the fact and will be added to the inventory of expected patterns, but others will be detected and given to resources for further analysis. The hit rate and success rate will be lower, but the outcomes could be larger. Risk analysis will become important in these cases.
Net; Net
Signals can transform into patterns of interest and recognizing them is crucial. New digital technologies will be helping handle these emerging patterns, fast. This requires big and Fast Data, plus intelligent work practices. Cognitive computing will help assist the lower speed humans over time.
Learn more about what TIBCO ActiveMatrix® BPM 4.0 and signals can do to help you expose your business patterns in disguise.
