I have known Vivek Ranadivé for many years now. Our paths last crossed in November 2005 at the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Awards, where he was named Change Agent of the Year for North America. The award recognized Ranadivé’s vision in real-time business and his concept of Predictive Business— both of which are captured in this breakthrough book, The Power to Predict.

Today, technology advancements and faster communications have integrated the world’s economies, made business capabilities more portable, and created a highly competitive, fast-changing marketplace. The Power to Predict addresses the challenges of this new, competitive landscape, and presents effective tools to executives to build and sustain predictability in their businesses.

As consultants to our clients’ strategic operating teams, Infosys provides the critical “outside” perspective to each client’s business. We realize the importance of recognizing megatrends that are working through the market and our clients’ organizations. Infosys has therefore been one of the first companies to acknowledge the benefits of the Predictive Business approach: we have used predictability tools for industry analysis, to build risk-mitigation strategies, and to create sustainable market advantage.

Does your success as a business depend on helping your clients profit in good times and bad, and survive the toughest market conditions? Would analyzing your clients’ business operations and uncovering repeatable sequences of events and results make you invaluable to your clients? How much of a competitive advantage would it be to know what your clients will want and need before they know it?

Finding the elusive answers to these questions, Ranadivé asserts, centers on managing your organization as a Predictive Business. So that it uses historical information, analyzed on the fly, to identify and capitalize on the results that are likely to occur. These results will happen, says Predictive Business thinking, because they have happened before in several scenarios just like this one. Intervene now and you will change what will otherwise, inevitably, become reality.

Vivek notes that truly understanding the past allows you to impact future results, by enabling you to recognize similar problems in the present. Using it to address your concerns before they become problems is what Predictive Business is all about. Imagine the power of being able to know that a service disruption is coming, and making the proper mid-course adjustments to avert it. Leveraged properly, this anticipatory knowledge becomes a significant competitive advantage. Gaining access to such knowledge is the reason to read The Power to Predict.

The book is imbued with real world examples from market-leading companies such as DBS Bank, FedEx, Pirelli, Adidas-Solomon, Southwest Airlines and Wal-Mart, to further our understanding and analysis of predictive methods.

I believe that The Power to Predict will compel innovative executives and managers everywhere to dissect past experiences and discover repeatable business patterns. Once they have isolated these factors and taken steps to avert oncoming challenges, you can expect these leaders to focus on transforming the competitive landscape to their advantage.

The Power to Predict is a handbook for the 21st Century business, encompassing business strategy for not just present and emerging trends, but also for the trends of the future.