Data – it’s what drives business today.  It’s everywhere, created by every device and interaction that touches the network.  The more companies are able to harness it, the better informed their decision-making can be, and the greater their opportunity to optimize operations and enhance customer experiences.

In a wirelessly-connected world, Wi-Fi access has become a must, especially considering that guest Wi-Fi access increases the time visitors spend in your facilities and often results in increased spending in retail and other similar businesses.  But, it goes beyond that.  Businesses also have an opportunity to turn their wireless networks into tremendous sources of valuable data to drive even greater benefits.  In fact, Wi-Fi data and analytics might be the most impactful resource for business intelligence in the modern era, turning incredible volumes of data into actionable insights. 

By understanding their network data, businesses can understand their users’ behavior, helping to boost business performance and drive strategic decisions and best practices. Across many industries – retail, healthcare, education, manufacturing, sports and entertainment, hospitality and tourism, and even general enterprises – companies are gaining a better understanding of their guests’ behavior. That includes not only basic data, like traffic and user counts, but frequency of guest connections (e.g., loyalty), browsing and on-site activity when connected, and other behavioral information that can translate into intelligence.

It’s not just about current data, though. Historical data is important for understanding trends, identifying emerging issues before they impact the business, and spotting new opportunities based on user data.  Most network vendors limit access to historical data, restricting its usefulness to very recent activity. But, because many trends last longer than a month – take the current pandemic, for instance, which has impacted user behavior for eight months already, or seasonal trends –access to historical information can deliver competitive advantages.

Extreme Networks gets that. With its ExtremeCloud IQ solution, it offers the industry’s first unlimited data plan, which means our customers have access to their entire historical data sets throughout their service agreement. 

Access to historical data means customers can generate much greater insight into users, devices, services, performance, security, and overall network behavior.

• Better understanding of user trends and behavior
• More efficient network troubleshooting by being able to trace problems to their outset
• Better ability to adhere to regulatory requirements (PCI, HIPAA, SOX, FERPA, GLBA, CIPA, etc.)
• Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict user behavior
• Detailed reporting on network and device usage and health
• Ability to integrate new IoT devices into network infrastructure for even greater insight and device management

Today, with the pandemic ongoing, Wi-Fi data can also be a tremendous asset for contact tracing to help keep employees and guests safe and more effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19.

If you think about how much of our lives – business and personal – is dependent on our mobile devices, it’s not surprising that Wi-Fi access continues to grow.  What businesses do with that access, though, is critical to their ability to maximize return on their investments.  Wi-Fi analytics brings a new era of insight to businesses, particularly those with access to unlimited historical data.

This blog was originally authored by Robert Nilsson, Director of Vertical Solutions Marketing.