With 56% of C-suite leaders expressing concerns about the possibility of making incorrect choices, Barry O’Donnell, CTO, TSG, tells Intelligent CIO how to utilise data to make business decisions where, in a world where the right decision can boost performance beyond competitors, ensuring you have all the information to make an informed call is vital.
Deciding on the best course of action for a business can be challenging, with 56% of C-suite leaders expressing concerns about the possibility of making incorrect choices. This is where the power of data comes into play.
Utilising data-driven strategies is essential because it enables businesses to forecast future trends and make informed decisions, which is crucial for both emerging start-ups and established businesses.
Poor decision making has led many companies, in all industries, to struggle. But by harnessing the data you already own, your business can make better-informed decisions which aid in boosting your productivity, costs, and market influence.
By simply adjusting your IT to better collect, store and analyse your data, your business will be able to make better informed decisions sure to bolster your company’s future.
Harnessing a data-driven approach
Harnessing your data is a must when it comes to improving your business decisions. In fact, 72% of businesses claim to use their data at the core of their decision-making models.
One thing to consider is the need for a strong data infrastructure within your business. By adopting managed IT, you can collect, store and analyse your data – ensuring that your business is getting the most from its information.
A robust infrastructure is important for business, and one way to achieve this is by working with a trusted partner for your managed IT needs. This support can ensure that you’re getting the most out of your technology stack and data for better business decisions.
According to Gartner, businesses that harness their data correctly are five times more likely to succeed over competitors. Ensuring that you’re gaining the best perspective for decision-making by understanding your business metrics and market trends is a must for a strong business.
Reasons to adopt data-driven decision making
- Appealing to stakeholders
Decision making can often be held at a standstill when stakeholders have objections. Getting your business plan past these vital contributors is important for the quick action and success your business needs.
Decisions are dictated more by stakeholders than previously, with an average of 11.4 stakeholders contributing to your business decisions in 2022, compared to 6.8 in 2016. This new heightened level of investor input means your business needs to have a strong business case backed by data.
- Taking a transparent approach
Data is transparent and informative. You can make clear decisions based on data that everyone has access to. This can cut down on the decision-making timeframe, improve accountability, and encourage transparency, as everyone has the same data.
Ensuring you’ve got the right infrastructure in place, as well as a trusted managed IT partner, can make your information easily accessible and manageable.
- Better business planning
Data-driven decisions are a great way to plan your coming business year. Using Big Data and even AI models, you can predict coming trends, anticipate buyer wants, and plan where your business can feasibly grow.
It can also be used to evaluate and improve service lines and offerings that aren’t profitable – meaning you can approach your CFO with everything they need to approve and adjustments in the budget.
- Predictive horizon scanning
If you’re keeping an eye on your numbers, you’ll be able to inform decisions from market and insight trends. Following changes in the market, your business can be ahead of the curve and gain a competitive advantage.
Not only are your decisions backed up, but you can also make quicker decisions in real-time. Implementing horizon scanning within your processes can help your business plan for macro-environmental factors that could arise and impact your business.
Challenges to consider
Harnessing the wrong data can be detrimental to your business activity, with the right decision making needing the right data behind it. Making sure your business has the right scalable, flexible, and suitable infrastructure in place is a must.
Depending on your industry and business goals, your business will want to harness different data to track KPIs, better understand market and customer trends, as well as even analyse service lines that aren’t benefitting your business. In this way, you’ll be able to make decisions in all areas of your company with the data behind it.
Every company has data, but not every company uses it to its advantage to in the right way to understand its customers and ensure that stakeholders have all the information they need to get on board with the decisions.
In a world where the right decision can boost performance beyond your competitors, ensuring you have the right information behind it is vital.
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