MIT: The rise of real-time IT creates the real-time business
The MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) thinks we should be considering real-time information streams, real-time governance, real-time data platform technologies and real-time application processing as some sort of whole entity as we now seek to define real-time businesses.
Keen to coin the term real-time business and festoon it with its own RTB acronym, the MIT CISR unit has conducted a research study with Insight Partners.
The researchers defined RTBs as those companies that respond immediately to opportunities and challenges by executing key business processes through automated digitised operations and employee-made data-driven decisions, supported by governance and risk guardrails.
After digital transformation
The MIT CISR research briefing, titled “What’s Next: Top Performers Are Becoming Real-Time Businesses,” explores the next step for companies that have gone through a digital business transformation and describes what it takes to become an RTB.
MIT says that trusting vetted data across the company reduces the need for double- checking, which improves operational efficiency and enables better risk management.
Most importantly, both customers and employees are more likely to be satisfied when answers, actions, or both are immediate.
“There is no longer time to pass decisions up and down the traditional hierarchy to receive permissions or approvals,” said Peter Weill, the report’s co-author, MIT Sloan School of Management senior research scientist, and chairman at MIT CISR. “Operating in real-time helps companies sense and respond to changes in an increasingly volatile business environment… and customers and employees are more likely to be satisfied by immediate action.”
At the foundation of an RTB is having easy access to trusted real-time data for use as inputs to automated decision-making and in decision-making by employees and systems.
MIT says that this means tracking company performance on key metrics and also enabling real-time governance and risk management.
What is a real-time decision?
An RTB’s distinguishing attribute is the ability to sense a threat or opportunity and change direction without getting multiple approvals or undergoing a reorganization. The combination of real-time data and simplified governance empowers people at all levels of the company to identify opportunities and issues.
“RTBs use real-time data to create a better employee experience and transform jobs. Automating tasks allows people to spend far less time doing repetitive and often paper-intensive work and instead focus on improving processes and innovating. Using real-time data in dashboards enables employees to better understand how the company is doing and how they contribute to the company’s performance,” said Weill and team.
Most companies need to move from relying on gut feelings and experiences to evidence-based decision-making, with high levels of trust in and empowerment of employees, along with increasing automation and the use of AI, such as by alerting customers to a potentially fraudulent banking transaction.
Any report stemming from the hallowed halls of MIT is (arguably) going to be fairly interesting and presented without hype and this is true of this occasion, but, what would have been nice is some kind of inclusion of the real-time technology spectrum (everything from Apache Kafka and beyond) included as part of the analysis… still, perhaps next time, if there’s time, in real-time.