At Data Summit Connect Fall 2020, Bruno Kurtic, founding vice president, strategy & solutions, Sumo Logic, presented a keynote titled "Redefining Business Intelligence for Real-Time Businesses."Sumo Logic provides best-in-class cloud monitoring, log management, cloud SIEM tools, and real-time insights for web and SaaS-based apps.
Videos of presentations from Data Summit Connect Fall 2020, a free series of data management and analytics webinars presented by DBTA and Big Data Quarterly, are available for viewing on the DBTA YouTube channel.
Kurtic was joined by Kal Patel, principal architect of Genesys, a provider of call center software. Genesys, which is a Sumo Logic customer, pioneered "Experience as a Service," enabled by Genesys Cloud, a public cloud contact center platform designed for rapid innovation, scalability, and flexibility.
According to Kurtic, there currently is an unprecedented convergence of events taking place that are accelerating digital transformation. From COVID-19, work-from-home initiatives, to the adoption of cloud and more, technology is helping companies reinvent their business models and how they operate. Now, more than ever, amidst this transformation, enterprises can leverage their data and real-time analytics to gain competitive advantage and expand market share. Real-time analytics will play an ever-increasing role in measuring key business and performance indicators across all aspects of a digital business operation, such as development, operations, security, marketing, finance and other business use cases. Reliance on real-time analytics and data will help accelerate and improve decision-making, drive great customer experiences and enable differentiation.
Kurtic outlined the key trends driving what he calls “continuous competitive advantage” and how real-time data generated by operations, security and business use cases will increase in relevance to business leaders. "Continuous intelligence is business intelligence redefined," said Kurtic, emphasizing that data can be leveraged to create competitive advantage.
Additionally, Patel shared how Genesys gains competitive advantage through real-time analytics of machine data generated by its cloud-based, omnichannel contact center platform. Together, they showed how real-time analytics has influenced Genesys' “continuous” improvement mindset, enabling it to maintain its competitive advantage by supporting more than 70 billion customer experiences each year for organizations in more than 100 countries.
Genesys' customers include critical workloads, healthcare centers, and other hotlines, and there can be serious consequences if SLAs are missed, said Patel, who shared how his company uses real-time data to continuously improve its services.
The data is now also being used not only by developers to improve services but also by non-technical teams to understand customer usage and identify how to innovate for end-customer advantage. Moreover, having the visibility into events and usage through data allows more focused and fact-based conversations with customers, Patel explained.
Digital transformation is not a fad, and is a key concern for all companies today that will continue to be ongoing for several more decades. While some organizations have prepared for the rapid changes taking place now, others are racing to catch up. Kurtic cited key companies—such as Netflix, which has disrupted home entertainment; Airbnb, which has disrupted the hospitality industry; Uber, which has disrupted transportation; Volvo, which is reinventing what it means to drive a vehicle; and United Airlines, which is immersing customers in a digital experience before, during, and after their trips—as examples of companies that have embraced digital transformation for business advantage.
Looking at data on the growth rate of industries since the pandemic began, Kurtic noted that areas that have taken advantage of digital transformation such as media, entertainment, and gaming are faring far better than other market segments that have been slower to evolve and still require more in-person interactions.
However, today every company is a software company, or should strive to be one, said Kurtic, who reflected on what it takes to become a software company that supports and digital business. There are three key elements, he said. One is technology, which consists of many elements and is mostly centered around enabling agility, another is data, which is mainly focused on the use of real-time unstructured, and the third is economics, with a focus on using a value-based model that allows a company to support predictability and adapt flexibly to changing requirements. All three things require different ways of organizing people, processes, and collaboration.