Tarun Kumar Jain

The fortunes of any form of business on this planet are correlated with the accuracy of the management decisions. Ironically, the toughest job of the management is to make an accurate decision owing to volatile economic conditions, cut throat competition, ever changing consumer demands, regulatory frameworks and constant technological transformations. Intuition and Experience have long been the primary weapons in a manager’s arsenal to help him reach to a decision. But it was essentially because of the absence of sufficient and reliable data and information. In the present era, where the volume, variety and velocity of data is massive, personal experience and insights are no longer sufficient in reaching a conclusion. The following conclusions can be drawn based upon the above results:- Personal intuition influences decision making to a great extent 80% of the time, more than any other decision making process factor Decision makers seek validation from peers and colleagues 50% of the time 1 out of 3 times, decisions makers make decisions without any data support or analysis Intuition, experiential judgement and gut feeling have their own place in decision making but if we couple it with data analysis, it can help the managers to identify the most optimal and smart decision leading to new business opportunities and competitive advantage. The significance of data driven decision making is highly evident from the fact that out performing organizations recognize and pursue data driven decision making much often than on par and under-performing organizations. Not only their profitability is high but the associated business risks and uncertainties are also minimal. From the above graph, it is clear that successful and leading organizations are leveraging upon data driven decision making, especially at enterprise level, at a much larger scale then the under-performing organizations. Intelligent enterprises leverage information to reach optimal decision in a faster manner and moreover to the outcomes that are most expected. Again it can be observed that out performing organizations recognize the value of information improvements and are hungry for more. All the critical divisions of an under-performing organizations are stuck in the bottom left quadrant where perceived benefits of information improvement as well as perceived gaps in information are low. This leads to a stagnant growth with lack of innovation and the organizational becomes unsustainable in the long run. However this potential source of competitive advantage is now increasingly being recognized by organizations at all levels and the focus is now shifting from the traditional decision making approach to a new modern approach as show below:- With the possession of right kind of data available, application of smart data analytics lead an organization to:- Discover insights by capturing real time data and synthesizing information from variety of sources Predict Outcomes by consolidating business sub systems and establish an integrated view of the business Act faster by understanding consumer preferences and environmental changes The above discoveries enable an organization with threefold immediate and strategic advantages:- Profitable Growth by improving opportunities to discover new customer base, uncovering their preferences leading to better customer relationships, identification of new potential markets and development of right product and services Cost optimization and efficiency by optimal allocation and deployment of resources and capital leading to higher operational performance Proactive risk management by better predicting the outcomes and identification of risk at early stage which gives the organization enough time to respond and act Organizations with focus on data and extracting key information and patterns out of it are already ahead on the growth curve as compared to their competitors. They are inherently employing the below depicted framework to breakaway from the clutter and uniquely differentiate themselves with respect to their supply chain, marketing, financial, human resources and other processes. The six dimensional framework for a data driven decision making organization are represented and explained below:- Aware - Gathers and senses all the structured and unstructured information from each point in the organization. Also helps in gaining insights from previous unquantifiable and unusable data. Linked - Integrates internal and external functions across all geographies, departments, business units and teams to align business activities from front to back of the organization. Precise - Uses the most relevant, updated and quality information to make timely decisions by the organizational management. Questioning - By deriving new insights and uncovering hidden patterns, it challenges the status quo and creates new opportunities for the organization. Empowering - Enables and extends the employees' memory, insight and reach as well as the authority to decide and act. Routine decision making is left to the automated systems enabling the employees to make higher value decisions. Anticipating - Instead of just reacting to the environment or correcting the mistakes, it focuses on the future to impart resilience and steers the organization amid uncertainties by evaluating trade offs. To conclude, we can say that the role of data and information shall shape the future of businesses through smart and intelligent decision making by enabling deeper customer understanding, enterprise visibility through a robust supply chain, optimize real time decisions through better predictability, maximizing customer service, reducing business risk etc. Organizations have already began to seize the opportunity to utilize data and information analytics for business advantage. Leaders are no longer relying just on intuition to fill information gaps. Instead they are coupling their management acumen and expertise with the unique data insights to make decisions in an entirely different way. They are able to draw out the specific, precise, relevant and contextualized information to predict the most likely outcomes of their key decisions. Given the nature of today's highly competitive business environment, no business can afford to leave benefits like these on the table. Only those organizations that can skillfully adopt, integrate and deploy the benefits of enterprise wide data analysis and optimization will be prepared to shape their own future. Note - Visitors shall not be able to comment on this article until they are logged in.