How does a business make decisions? How should a business make decisions? As a business owner, I want to believe that I have what it takes to lead. I'm charismatic enough that I can usually convince people to do what I want them to do. I am good enough with Google that I can find out many things and I have the ability to learn a great deal about complex topics quickly. Surely I will thusly make good …
People made data driven decisions. Govt too.
Actually they do make evidence based decisions. If I buy this I get a nice meal out of it. If I buy this I can stop thinking about it and go on facebook. If I buy this it makes me look good.
Very few people make holistic evidence based decisions. Hence the market share of Microsoft, Intel, SAP, use of Wind Turbines, EU integration and monetary policy, cars over bikes, etc etc etc
Management Decisions have been very important in every business that I've worked for - it's not so much how the decisions are made, or if any evidence, or reasoning is used to back them up - what's important is that Decisions Are Made.
Decisions justify Management - therefore it's vital that they are made ... because otherwise how would Management justify its salaries? Most of the time the Decision is made first and then they hunt around afterwards for the evidence to back it up - it's much easier that way.
I agree 100% with the opening paragraphs. That's a great summary of how hard it is to run a modest-sized business.
It's a shame the article doesn't really lead anywhere.
I agree that more good data would be really, really helpful. If you're a big operation, you have loads of data already and you can apply analytics to learn new stuff. But what do you do if you're a smaller concern? With only tens or hundreds of customers. How on earth can you (cost-effectively) gather enough data to make a sane decision?
Many bosses just go with gut feel. The rest of us cling to the hope it wasn't simply the result of what the boss had for lunch...
I agree we need to get to a point where we are more apt to include data insights in our decision making process. This is especially true as an increasingly large portion of companies are pushing towards finding a competitive edge in today's sharing/digital economy, Part of the answer? Enabling more self-service opportunities for business users to have stronger, more consistent access to data tools. Peter Fretty, IDG blogger for SAS Big Data Forum
Is it me or is the message of this article contradictory?
The ending seems to be to recommend "big data" or in most business terms "just analyse the (limited) data you have and watch for trends" however the core message is that when bringing in a new product one has to look at the data that one doesn't have because there won't be sales data for a new product or service and predictions for uptake of a new product or service are often vague at best.
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