Event streaming technology offers a myriad of benefits for big data organizations, but its value depends on the organization's level of maturity in adopting an event-driven architecture. Early use cases provide some value, but full adoption leads to transformational value. As organizations progress from simple pub/sub messaging to connected ecosystems, they begin to reuse data streams across applications and adopt a broader perspective on event streaming. Platform effects amplify the value as the business relies on the platform for mission-critical use cases, leading to massive efficiencies of scale and network effects. Finally, mature organizations create a unified streaming platform that acts as a central nervous system, driving exponential growth in value and enabling new business models. Event streaming provides immediate, reliable, accurate, and intelligent data analysis, and its importance is amplified by the economic climate and the need for reacting to customer events and operational events in near real-time.