The Power to Predict

Real-time business gives companies the ability to monitor and react to changes and address problems as they occur. But no matter how sophisticated their information-gathering and data mining systems are, they're still playing catch-up. In The Power to Predict, Ranadive forecasts the next step in achieving breakthrough business performance, a new approach he calls Predictive Business: the ability to anticipate business problems and opportunities and to act preemptively. Predictive Business allows companies to take real-time information, correlate it with historical patterns, and recognize events that hold tremendous profit potential.

In an effort to stay ahead of the curve, a handful of companies have been quietly making the transition from reactive organizations to proactive and are well-suited for a customer-centric business paradigm. Ranadive takes us inside a number of these companies - including Amazon, Pirelli, Harrah's, E. & J. Gallo, Wal-Mart, and 7-Eleven - to show how they are making that transition, and are able to anticipate customer needs and be ready satisfy them the minute they emerge, and be prepared for sudden events such as a power outage, spikes in demand for a product or service, logistic issues due to changing weather patterns, or evolving customer requirements.