What are the three things in a use case that help make that shift for a client intelligently?
Ashley Hetrick, BDO USA: I’ ve got a client who manufactures industrial equipment here in the Midwest. They run a lot of their own materials back and forth. As we started to look through the data, the biggest problem was manufacturing exceptions: I don’ t have the parts I need on the manufacturing floor. So we backed up and said,‘ What are the handful of things that indicate whether a part arrives on time when it’ s expected?’
Then I can set up specific data collection points for those items and ensure those are the only signals I’ m receiving. I can then change the predictability of my inventory. But that’ s really hard to do if the problem is really big. So it’ s like, what’ s the one thing that, if I could get control of it, 80 % of the noise in my organisation would go away? That’ s where I’ ve seen companies really succeed in using that data.
Bavik Pathak, Alstom: I can certainly echo what Ashley said. Data is absolutely important, but when we talk about market intelligence, we gather all this data, but intelligence is not a one-time thing.
We need to continuously sense that data and plan scenarios: how can we react in those kinds of scenarios? If something happens, this is my action plan. We need to continuously run those models and, based on those outcomes, be ready.
And of course, data integrity is paramount. If we do not have the right data, if we do not have decision models integrated into that, things will go wrong.
92 June 2026