Algebra of anticipation

Nobody ever got wired for buying dead data. In The Power of Now, Vivek Ranadive, chief of the systems integration and process software firm Tibco, made a live-wire case for the value of real-time information. Now, in The Power to Predict, Ranadive sells "predictive business" as the next big wonder of software wizardry.

But could that be why Nandan Nilekani, chief of Infosys, describes it as a "handbook for the 21st century business" in its foreword?

Read on. Wal-Mart, you discover, stacks up high on beer and Pop-Tarts if it hears a butterfly flap... okay, if weather patterns indicate an oncoming hurricane, now that real-time data can be analysed against past records (the impact of 2004's Hurricane Charlie on sales in this case). "You don't have to be a psychic to run your organisation successfully," writes Ranadive, "Over time, patterns emerge, and if you can marry those patterns with real-time information, you can get half a step ahead."

Predictive business, in other words, is about leadership as you know it""with news data being crunched constantly in the context of a broad framework of understanding in your head""with software doing most of the grunt work for a change. This frees your grey cells to work on issues of finer judgement. The future is riddled with unknowns, after all, and not all of them can be mapped in advance. "In some cases, we may be able to predict an event, but not its magnitude or the effect it will have. Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Southeast Asia are recent examples," he writes, just before offering a refresher on probability basics.

Anyhow. No matter the accuracy, prediction spells power. And so, in every theatre of human endeavour, be it X-fields to help oil-guzzlers overcome oil supply uncertainty, or network-centric warfare to help armies operate under the "fog of war" ""two of the several examples the author gives to illustrate his point.

Yet, the most interesting aspect of this book, perhaps, is the way it conforms to its brief""of staking a technology vision""while restraining itself from making any overtly substantive prediction. This would seem a trifle odd in the US readership market, with its fondness for dramatic "you-can-hold-me-to-it" prophecies and whizbang "betcha-can't-quit-readin" style of prose. This is also what makes The Power to Predict more "Indian" than "American", the wisdom of which may be discernible only at the end of the book, and to unbiased eyes.

"Over the past 20 years, companies and governments that were able to leverage the power of the microprocessor..." were able to smash their way ahead, according to Ranadive. "In the same way, I believe that those who take advantage of technology to anticipate the next curve in the road will emerge as winners over the next 20 years. The only way to thrive in this world of uncertainty is to figure out how to run your business, or your government, predicatively."

And gatecrashing the future, one assumes, will not be as easy as revving forth from the past doing a wheelie, cheered on by all. It's tougher this time round, that's for sure. Regardless of the calibration of the approach, in the ultimate analysis, it's about a vision: for one, one needs one. For another, it's about the courage of conviction: and 20 years is not too long away. Time is ticking away...

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THE POWER TO PREDICT
HOW REAL-TIME BUSINESSES ANTICIPATE CUSTOMER NEEDS, CREATE OPPORTUNITIES AND BEAT THE COMPETITION

Vivek Ranadive
Tata McGraw-Hill
Price: Rs 299; Pages: xv + 240