KARYA can help organizations design Enterprise-wise Alerts by leveraging your existing Business Intelligence Systems. To know more about KARYA’s Data Management Solutions please log on to http://www.karyatech.com/blog/how-to-maintain-homeostasis-using-business-intelligence-alerts/

1. © KARYA Technologies Inc.
How To Maintain Homeostasis Using Business Intelligence Alerts

2. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 1

3. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 2

4. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 3
What is Homeostasis?
Encyclopedia Britannica defines Homeostasis as any self-regulating process by which Biological Systems tend to
maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival.
If Homeostasis is successful, life continues; if unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues. The stability attained is actually a
dynamic equilibrium, in which continuous change occurs yet relatively uniform conditions prevail. An often cited example
for Homeostasis is temperature regulation in humans and warm-blooded animals in general.

5. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 4
Key Components
The two important components of Homeostasis are Sensors and Effectors. Sensors monitor and detect changes in the
controlled entity and provide the negative feedback for Effectors to carryout corrective measures and these corrective
measures remain in motion until the deviation is reversed.
The effectiveness of Homeostasis is in its ability to trigger the corrective measure in real time while the controlled entity is
alive, well and able to survive the deviation and also self-correct. It is borne out of survival instincts, the need to survive and
perpetuate.
An organization is a controlled entity and in order to effectively monitor and regulate the various processes within it, it is
worth investing in the Sensor and Effector Mechanism because they ensure its survival. Homeostasis is nothing new in the
business world. Most manufacturing processes are monitored using Industrial and Engineering Control Systems that are
self-regulating.
In IT Services the advent of DevOps is a direction towards a seamless response system for dynamic demand on Software,
Services and Infrastructure. Machine Learning, Algorithmic Processing of events and transactions and Internet of Things
are good examples of embedded Homeostasis in action. In the end, a living optimal entity is a result of an ever present
Homeostasis.

6. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 5
Alerts and Sensors
Organizations can leverage their existing Business Intelligence Infrastructure to install Alerts. There is lot more emphasis
on the need for On-demand Decentralized Reporting than demand for Auto-course Correcting Mechanisms that BI Alerts
can facilitate. BI Alerts are the Sensors. Alerts trigger when certain pre-determined set points are deviated and provide the
negative feedback necessary for the Effectors to kick in. These set points are commonly called KPIs but I would like to
bring in measures for vitality instead of KPIs. I think Vitality and Homeostasis go together.
Many organizations use Alerts and Notifications from their BI Systems, but not as Cohesive Mechanism for an Enterprise-
wide Alarm System to stabilize operations and survive. Balanced Scorecards measure and monitor performance but do not
help in keeping Homeostasis in the earliest available opportunity. In order to get to the deep green colour highlight on a
Balanced Scorecard, Alerts are a must for course correction.
What must you sustain on a daily, weekly or a monthly basis to remain vital. If the answer is based on Average Foot Fall or
Customer Complaints or Sales or Margins. A very simple example of Vitals calculated from these are;

7. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 6
SALES
Vitality of Sales = Inclination of Trend line of (Weighted Average YTD Actual Sales (Daily)) minus (Weighted
Average YTD Actual/Budgeted Sales (Yesterday/Daily))
{Trigger Alert when Vitality of Sales < 0 degrees} {Stop Alert when Vitality of Sales >= 0 degrees}
Customer Complaints
Vitality of Customer Satisfaction = A Trend line of (Average YTWE NPS (this week) – Average YTWB NPS (week
before))
{Trigger Alert when Vitality of Customer Satisfaction < 0 degrees} {Stop Alert when Vitality of Customer
Satisfaction >= 0 degrees}

8. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 7
The Trends and Averages may be daily, weekly, monthly or some other period depending on how volatile your parameters
are. The average chosen should iron out daily fluctuations and clearly show a trend upward, downward or steady state.
Instead of a plain vanilla Average Calculation, a sophisticated Forecasting or other Statistical Models relevant to your
industry may be used to calculate the trend and define the Alert set points.
Predictive Analytics to forecast a set point or a trend and thereupon issue an alert can be an effective red flag. Alerts may
be graded to denote the significance of the deviation. Since we are talking about Homeostasis, we may also borrow the
concept of Early Warning Score (EWS) used by the Medical Community to assess the degree of illness of a patient. In BI
Terminology we know it as tolerance threshold in a Balanced Scorecard. Preventive Action kicks in when the Alert goes out
in response to meeting an EWS.

9. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 8
‘The Alert System’
The Effectors are the organizational managers and their teams, who have the resources to diagnose the reasons for
deviation from Vitals, take corrective measures. On-demand Reporting can be a great tool for Diagnosis. The alerts must
be designed to facilitate Drill-through Action to deeper levels of data.
In fact, “Project Homeostasis”, cannot be a success without a robust Data Processing and Integration Infrastructure in
place for Analytics. The beauty and the effectiveness of ‘The Alert System’ is in its ability to keep blaring its horns until the
fire has been doused. There are no accessible buttons to push to silence the alarms. They can only be silenced by
correcting the course of the Trend Line.
Knowledge about your Business, Industry in general and a Creative Imagination are the limits to how Alerts may be defined
and implemented in your organization.

10. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 9
KARYA can help organizations design Enterprise-wise Alerts by leveraging your existing Business Intelligence Systems. To
know more about KARYA’s Data Management Solutions please log on to http://www.karyatech.com.
(About the Author- Nagarajan Mahadevan works as Principal Consultant- Data Management Solutions at KARYA
Technologies. He is a Techno-Commercial expert and has more than 2 decades of experience in Business Intelligence,
Data Warehousing Technologies, Financial Accounting and Management Consulting. His areas of interests, apart from
staying abreast on latest IT Trends and Technologies, are Yoga and Indian Classical Music.)

11. © KARYA Technologies Inc. 10