4-19 Blazer Industries (Predictive Maintenance) Blazer Interactive is a software company that focuses on first-person player video games, In Blazer's CEO, Alexander James, introduced a revolutionary new gaming console to his com3 product line. The z/Station's primary draw was a virtual reality helmet that provided a totaliy is otally im sive experience for gamers. The z/Helmet not only offered a stunning video and audio exnes game. Additionally, it captured vital statistics data Cheart rate, blood pressure, and the like) from and scenarios. Blazer Interactive upgraded the system in 2015 with other "smart" accessori as well as vibrations and other movement-simulating feedback that was synced to te the action in player and, using a complex server-side algorithm, utilized this data to augment the game's acti es, and by 2017 the z/System2 had an almost cult following. However, there were issues. While a new z/Systems was due out later in the Fall, James and his aving difficulty estimating demand for the new system. There were also concerns abou warranty costs due to component failure. James worried about estimating product failure nd what effect, if any, social rates so that the company could properly accruing for warranty cost, a media buzz (either positive or negative) would have on demand. During a brainstorming session, one of Blazer Interactive's new accountants had an idea. "You know, we've captured a ton of data on these systems since we introduced them in 2013. Even though we've innovated our products with regularity every year or so, the underlying hardware-motors and accelerometers and sensors and thingies-well, that hasn't really changed. And don't we have terabytes of data that is granular down to the individual unit level? Stuff like active use time, user vital stats-that junk? What would stop us from pairing that with data from our warranty service center software? We could actually predict wben a console or z/Helmet was going to fail, couldn't we? 133 CHAPTER 4/ Accounting and Deta Analytics The head of marketing chimed in as well. "Yeah, that's cool! And we could probably do some analysis on social media buzz.. you know, maybe look at the Twitter and Facebook buzz ahead of our previous product launches, and try to use that to extrapolate out what demand might be for the upgraded console?" Requirements 1. What type of analytics do you feel would be most appropriate for Blazer Interactive to use 2. Are there other data sources that the team should be looking to for insights into product failure 3. As an accountant, how comfortable are you with using nonfinancial data (like sentiment analysis (descriptive, predictive, prescriptive)? Why? rates or to anticipate demand for a new console? from social media) to augment or fine-tune product pricing and demand decisions? Do you think this will become mainstream practice in the short-term? 4. Do you have any concerns about the z/System, capturing vital statistics on users and storing them on a network? How much privacy are you willing to trade for an enhanced and personalized user experience? 5. What additional service offerings do you thing Blazer Interactive might be able to offer given the data they are collecting? How might these data be monetized into other services or revenue streams