The document discusses using Apache Kafka to capture customer data across multiple systems for a healthcare organization. It describes implementing a Kafka event streaming pipeline to collect user interaction data from a member portal. This provided a single view of members across different systems to improve customer experience, operational efficiency, and adopt new technologies. The implementation was successful and prepared the organization to stream more customer data for analytics and better customer service.

1. BUSINESS
CONSULTANTS
DEEP
TECHNOLOGISTS
Using Kafka in your organization
with real-time user insights for a
Customer 360 view
Chris Maier
Steven Royster

2. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.2
AGENDA
Background
Our Use Case
Impacts
Kafka and You
Q&A

3. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.3
Kafka excels in connecting disparate systems to quickly and reliably
surface data where it is needed most
Performance Scalability Reliability Access
Data pipeline serving as single point of contact between data producers and consumers

4. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Project Background
4
Mission
Value propositioning, justification, meetings with executive stakeholders
Timeline
Technology selection, Proof of Concept, operationalization and productionalization
Client
Large not-for-profit health insurer servicing more than 1 million residents
Wide variety of isolated systems in organization
Socialization
“Showing of Concept”, business opportunities

5. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Our client had three core goals centered around capturing a more holistic
Customer 360 view of their members
5
Customer Experience
Capture new member data
for CX analytics
Leading Technologies
Scalable and extensible data
streaming infrastructure
Operational Efficiency
Surface information in real-time
instead of looking for it later
GOAL
Every member interaction on our
portal will be logged and immediately
available for analytics.
Knowledge transfer sessions and
documentation will detail the
implementation and best practices of
new technologies used.
Actions will be published in real-time
and stored in a database and in a
distributed file share for easy access.
POC
SUCCESS
CRITERIA
STRATEGIC
ALIGNMENT
Enable analytics to help us prioritize
the most effective channels and
surface better information.
Gain experience with extensible and
scalable software associated with
on-demand, real-time analytics.
Improve efficiency by pushing data
where it’s needed instead of making
consumers spend time searching.

6. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
What did we do?
6

7. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.7
We defined nine key criteria to measure our success in building a data
streaming infrastructure
Event Tracking
Identified key user interaction events will be captured from Member Portal. An event tracking
technology will be collectively selected and lead to a better understanding of its capabilities.
Event Streaming
A versatile data stream layer will relay captured events to consumers. An event streaming
technology will be collectively selected and lead to a better understanding of its capabilities.
Production Ready
Application will have 80% code coverage in unit/integration tests, a complete CI/CD pipeline,
and will be written using best programming practices.
Data Storage
Events will be pushed from the stream into a data store. An event storage technology will be
collectively selected and lead to a better understanding of its capabilities.
Modern
Application will be built using leading technologies and modern application patterns that
allow for easy swapping of underlying technologies when needed.
Scalable
Minimal additional code will be needed to support higher loads or a broader deployment
surface with little to no refactoring required.
Extensible
Technologies can be easily integrated into other portals (e.g. employer, provider) and with
CRM.
Project Visibility
Sprints will consist of a comprehensive backlog, daily standup, demos, and collaborative
architectural discussions/decisions.
Discovery
Developers will gain familiarity with best practices of the tech stack and feasibility in
extending to other projects.

8. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
After evaluating numerous data streaming and storage technologies, we
decided upon Kafka, Hadoop, and Elasticsearch
8
Streaming Storage
u Real-time
u Scalable
u Distributed
u Fault tolerant
Kafka
u Long-term storage
solution
u Scalable
u Strong user
community
u Suitable for event
storage
u Supports high
performance analytics
workloads via Spark
Hadoop
u Short-term storage
solution
u Scalable
u Highly available
u Strong user
community
u Suitable for event
storage
u High performance
CRUD operations
Elasticsearch+

9. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Elasticsearch
HDFS
Filebeat
High-level Architecture
9
Apigee
Kafka Connect
Hosted in Docker
Kafka ConnectKafka
Facets
Aerial
Kafka REST Proxy
Kafka ConnectIVR
Shared LibMember
Portal

10. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Member Portal Clickstream – Implementation
10
Ability to turn off
event logging
Disable the capturing of
sensitive data
Shared Angular
Library
Shared components,
custom Angular
directive, event logging
service
Kafka REST Proxy
Utilize the REST Proxy to
produce and consume
messages

11. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
02 Web page tracking,
path patterns
URL
04 Geo-location, malicious
use detection
IP Addresses
05Username, email, phone
number, member key
Member Data
03Device identification, UI /
UX, resizing issues
Window / Screen Size
01Buttons, text boxes, tabs,
dropdowns, radio buttons, links
UI Components
Member Portal Clickstream – Data Points
11

12. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
“Hey!! The helpful little
person only pops up
when I actually need
help now!”
Member Portal Clickstream – Examples
12
Hi, you look lost.
How can I help you?
“Support calls
usually take
forever…not
this time!”
“This user
interface is so
intuitive! It’s like
they know what I
need to do!”

13. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Additional Integrations
13
Care Management
Portal
Interactive Voice
Response
Track members’ phone interactions
with support call tree and CSRs
IVR
Surface member data and
customer service notes
Facets
Get a feel for members’
upcoming schedule with nurses
Aerial
Core Claims
Processing System

14. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Organizational Impact
14
C l i e n t D e v e l o p e r s
Prepared client developers to
quickly build event streaming
solutions through shared
event streaming component
library and comprehensive
knowledge transfer
I T M a n a g e m e n t
Equipped IT management
with the resources and
patterns required to lead
organization through its
technology modernization
efforts
E x e c u t i v e s
Demonstrated Kafka
implementation to inform
executives of data
streaming potential and
enable them to push their
vision forward

15. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
UP-TO-DATE
INTERACTION LOG
Immediate insight into
what members are
doing on Member
Portal
Real-time Impact
15
REACTIVE FEEDBACK
TO USERS
Ability to instantly act
on member
interactions to provide
better user experience
CONTEXT FOR
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Data available to
provide context to CSRs
when responding to
customer support
requests
FULL TOUCHPOINT
TRANSPARENCY
Visibility into all
touchpoints between
member and business

16. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.16
Long-term Impact
Operational
Efficiency
Leading
Technologies
Customer
Experience
Enable Customer 360
data capture,
analysis, and
distribution to steer
customer experience
improvements.
Streamline business
and development
processes to utilize
resources more
effectively and keep
critical information
at the forefront.
Employ and gain
experience with
extensible and
scalable software
development that
enables innovation.

17. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
How can l use this?
17

18. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.18
The Task: Track as much data around your customers as possible
Customer support
requests
Social media /
Networking
Clickstream
Advertising /
Marketing
Location
Product /
service purchase
history
CUSTOMER
360
Billing
Relevant Industries
Transportation
Track data around trips taken, including fare, time,
location to predict trends
Food
Provide recommendations using data from
rewards programs, mobile ordering, digital kiosk
interactions
Financial Services
Collect data from customers’ assets (stocks, real
estate, etc.), bank transactions, interactions with
associates for better service
Retail
Paint a picture of what customers want based on
what they’re viewing and buying online and in
stores

19. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Comprehensive User Data
Capture all user touchpoints
and auxiliary data to enable
better customer service and
data analytics
Current Interests
Understand what products/services
your customers are currently
looking to purchase and adjust
supply to accommodate demand
Actionable Trends
Analyze trends to determine
potential upsell opportunities
and what your customers may
want in the future
Improved User Experience
Collect user interactions with
current customer experience
to improve overall UX and
tailor it to each user
The Goal: Know your customers better than they know themselves
19

20. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
The Result:
20
Marketing
Brand loyalty and
targeted advertising
IT Team
Data streaming
capability, large store
of customer data
Customers
Improved user
experience that
meets their needs
UX
User feedback to
leverage in designs
Executives
Larger bottom line
from more purchases
CSRs
Faster, more helpful
service from additional
context
A better business thanks to happier customers

21. © 2018 West Monroe Partners | Reproduction and distribution without
West Monroe Partners prior consent is prohibited.
Steven Royster
sroyster@wmp.com
u B.S. Computer Science – North Central
College
u Software Engineering Consultant at West
Monroe Partners
u Kafka – January through July
About Us
21
Chris Maier
cmaier@wmp.com
u B.S. Computer Engineering – University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
u Software Engineering Consultant at West
Monroe Partners
u Kafka – January through July