Kevin Maney

Vivek Ranadive

What made Wayne Gretzky the greatest hockey player of all time wasn’t his speed on the ice or the uncanny accuracy of his shots, but rather his ability to predict where the puck was going to be an instant before it arrived. In other words, it was Gretzky’s brain that made him exceptional. Over the past fifteen years, scientists have found that what distinguishes the greatest musicians, athletes, and performers from the rest of us isn’t just their motor skills or athletic abilities—it is the ability to anticipate events before they happen. A great musician knows how notes will sound before they’re played, a great CEO can predict how a business decision will turn out before it’s made, a great chef knows what a recipe will taste like before it’s prepared. In a powerful narrative that takes us from the research in the labs to the implementation of predictive technology inside companies, Vivek Ranadivé and Kevin Maney reveal how our understanding of human mastery is being applied to the way computers "think." In the near future, the authors argue, the most advanced computer systems and the most successful businesses will anticipate the future much like Wayne Gretzky’s brain does. As a result, companies will be able to use a new generation of technology to anticipate customer needs before customers even know what they want, and see production snafus before they occur, traffic jams before they materialize, and operational problems before they arise. Forward-thinking companies will be able to predict the future just a fraction ahead of everyone else with a little bit of the right information at the right time—what the authors call the two-second advantage—and it will transform the way businesses are run and offer companies an enormous competitive edge in the marketplace. In the bestselling tradition of Blink, Sway, and How We Decide, The Two-Second Advantage will change our understanding of what makes a company successful.

How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future--Just Enough

The Two-Second Advantage

Vivek Ranadivé

How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology. Meet the future head-on with this incisive book that details emerging trends that will affect all businesses as they progress through the 21st century. Today's technology has become vital to the speed and performance of business. The fast-paced, high-stakes world of technology is infiltrating business everywhere, through the extensive use of high-speed networks, powerful desktop computers, the Internet, and integrated information across many systems. Customers are also demanding that everything be done faster, at lower cost without sacrificing quality. How will your company compete and prosper in the new millennium? How can you raise your company above the ravages of creeping commoditization and gain that crucial, elusive competitive advantage? The answers lie in becoming event-driven. Event-driven companies (those that acquire, deploy, and wisely exploit real-time information) are the most successful at sensing and responding to the events that drive their businesses. They use the power of real-time information to drive the development and delivery of new products and services. The winning approach presented in this book will benefit any company competing in this age of globalization, emerging technologies, and ever-increasing competition. After reading this book, you will be able to employ the technology to create real-time operations, and you will have the tools, mindset, and organizational structure that enable you to do the right thing at the right time. And the right time is now.

The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology

In the mid 1980s systems integration visionary Vivek Ranadivé broke the real-time information barrier and helped to digitize Wall Street. With his international bestseller The Power of Now, he helped usher in the real-time business revolution of the late 1990s. Now with this groundbreaking new book, Ranadivé brings news of the next big leap in business systems evolution-The Power to Predict. Real-time business gives companies the ability to monitor and react to changes and address problems as they occurr. But no matter how sophisticated their information-gathering and data mining systems are, they're still playing catch-up. In The Power to Predict, Ranadivé forecasts the next step in achieving breakthrough business performance, a new approach he calls Predictive BusinessTM: 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, anc 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 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 In The Power to Predict you'll discover how your company can accomplish these goals by continuously matching real-time events with historical patterns to improve business processes. Just as important, you'll get expert insight to improve business processes and advice on what it will take to align your company's resources, technology, and culture into an unstoppable, world-class Predictive-Business.

Vivek Ranadive

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