Making decisions with data

Shona Kaye, sales effectiveness and experience executive at LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions, highlights the value of data streamlining in making key business decisions effectively.

I find the process of decision-making fascinating. It is interesting how different individuals will approach the same challenge with varying ideas and perspectives. With great decision making, is there an art, a science or even perhaps a secret formula? Consider for a minute those around you and how they make their choices. Some will gather all the available facts and build out their evidence before making any sort of judgement. In contrast, others appear to have the gift of intuition and a decisiveness to act immediately. Some reflect on a problem for a long time, exploring every outcome and avenue before moving ahead. And, of course, there are those in between, who take a mixed approach to both reasoning and acting.

So which type of person is the more effective decision maker? The one who thinks fast may not have weighed up all of the facts, but the one who reflects too deeply may suffer from ‘analysis paralysis’ – and not move ahead at all. In today’s business world, we need to make decisions both quickly and intelligently, and data – when used effectively – can provide a huge amount of assistance with this.

Many organisations have struggled to harness their data, perhaps because it has grown exponentially over the years without a defined structure and is consequently in a chaotic state. Other companies have effectively consolidated their data but still have trouble keeping it in order and maintaining it. Either way, getting your data in shape is necessary in today’s competitive environment, where judgements and decisions need to be made both well and quickly. McKinsey & Company predicts that by 2025 the use of real-time data will be implanted into every workplace decision and process. Indeed, the ability to see live operational metrics is arguably becoming an expected norm rather than a ‘nice-to-have’ feature in our systems. So how can we work to achieve this if we haven’t already?

If you are starting from the very beginning, there will be a degree of time investment depending on the quality of your data, and it may be necessary to hire a data or business intelligence analyst to map and plan how you intend to clean, control, and maintain your data going forward. Of course, technology then plays a huge part in this. If you can plug a reporting tool into your database and overlay a data visualisation tool, you will be able to see your day-to-day business operations and statistics in real time, giving you direction to plan, optimise and identify areas for improvement.

We have helped numerous firms to sync and streamline their data reporting capabilities, allowing them to receive immediate information and insights, mitigating the need to make snap decisions or spend significant time searching for information. If you would like to contact us about our solutions, please do not hesitate to get in touch via email at salesinfo@lexisnexis.co.uk.