How do you make your business successful? It’s a question every company asks and agonizes over. Yet considering how many companies fail within 10 years (more than 90 percent), it’s clear we are reaching for the wrong answers.
Why is that? You would think after so many businesses fail, we would begin to learn from their mistakes?
Many large organization fail due to an inability to adapt to changes in their industry, adopt new technologies when they should have, or tap into growth opportunities when their competitors did.
The truth is that until recently, the right answers were difficult to see, much less understand. Businesses couldn’t really understand themselves even.
They claimed to be guided by prudent judgment and cautious risk management. But those are just buzzwords for what most business decision-making actually is – guesses, assumptions, instincts, and gambles. No one wants to admit their decisions are misinformed and uncertain. Get honest with any business leader, however, and that’s exactly how they operate. Perhaps it’s not surprising that so many decisions turn out to be the wrong ones.
Decision makers didn’t want to make risky bets, but they had no alternative. Most aspects of performance were unknown and unknowable. And even if you wanted to wade through the data you did have, it would take an army of analysts hours upon end. The choice was between making risky moves forward or forever holding place.
This was the way of the past, but it won’t be the way of the future. Data analytics turns the unknown into the obvious. It illuminates business performance in incredible depth and detail. But, crucially, it does so quickly and easily. In practice, you always have the resources you need to act confidently.
Think about how you currently make decision, large, small, yearly, or daily. Now consider what data analytics adds to your thought process.
Empirical Information
Data analytics condenses vast amounts of information into clear insights. Essentially, it takes the guesswork out of decision making. Instead of making assumptions and operating on intuition, you have objective and empirical guidance.
Integrated Information
When data is divided between departments, servers, and file folders it’s hard to find what you need. Data analytics integrates information onto a single platform so that there is only one place to look. The information is updated in real time and shared by all authorized users. That way, lack of information never has to compromise the selection process.
Instantaneous Information
Decision making is a time-sensitive process. When something must be done on a deadline you need the right information as quickly as possible. Data analytics automates and expedites that process. Accessing insights is as easy as making the request. Instead of waiting to act or acting blindly, you have information on-demand. This is especially true if you leverage data analytics tools from brands like ThoughtSpot, which offer faster insights and easily shared reports and data visualizations.
Organic Information
Data analytics is great, but not every solution is equal. Some make it confusing or cumbersome to get insights. Average users either struggle to get information or choose to avoid analytics because it feels like an obstacle. Quality data analytics tools do just the opposite. They are intuitive enough for anyone to use at a high level. They are also accessible enough to combine with existing workflows. Basically, they complement what you already do so that working with data is simple and seamless.
So, what is the real benefit of “improved decision making?” According to McKinsey, it’s significant. A survey of 70 executives showed the companies that extensively use data outperform the competition. They report higher metrics in everything from sales growth to ROI. Clearly, data-driven decision making leads to better decisions overall.
This isn’t a radical concept. In fact, every company in history wished it could make the right choice more often. Now that it’s possible, who wouldn’t want to avoid more mistakes and celebrate more successes?
