Embracing Data-Driven Decision Making

In the era of technology and digitisation, data plays a vital role in decision making for businesses. Businesses’ success depends on the planning and strategizing which becomes more effective if driven by data. Data driven decision making impacts overall business because it does not depend on our intuition or gut feeling. 

What is data-driven decision making?

If we look at our daily lives, we make decisions based on our intuitions. Sometimes they work and at others they backfire. But that is how life is! While in businesses you cannot go with the flow. You have to step up and make decisions that are going to produce better results. 

Data driven decisions help businesses to boost their sales which is the ultimate goal of any organisation. Decisions based on data are bias free. You get a roadmap to ensure that the decisions align with the goals of the organisation. 

How to make data driven decisions?

Data is the most essential part to make your decisions for the organisation. But how do you ensure to use data for relevant decisions impacting your overall business. Here are a few steps that would help you use data at its best. 

Define objectives:

Objectives drive the purpose of the organisation. Defining objectives and keeping them in mind would help you track the data that is relevant for your business. A data analyst needs to be clear with what data they would dive into. 

The internet is a huge platform with numerous sources of information. All the data cannot be relevant for you. Before diving into the pool of information you need to understand the objectives of the organisation. 

A data analyst would collect and process data and get useful insights that will are resourceful for the organisation. 

Find sources of data:

Sources of data are essential for the process of data collection. You need to determine the sources of information that are resourceful for your business. Ensure to find data sources that have relevant information that will help your organisation. 

For example you run an e-commerce website. For this you need to track consumer behaviour on various e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and others. These will be your relevant sources not YouTube, Instagram or Facebook. 

Collect and filter the data:

All the collected data might not be useful for you. A digital analyst would collect and then filter it. Just collecting data is not enough, you have to work with resourceful data that can help you make decisions. 

Filtering data includes keeping the bits of information that would impact the decision-making of the company. 

For example, a data analyst tracked the consumer’s behaviour and you figured out which products they like to buy the most; what alternative products they are using; how do they make the payment. 

From this you came to know the popular products, your competitors and mode of payment but right now your company does not care how people are paying. So you will only focus on the first two pieces of information and keep that for further analysis. 

Analysis of the data:

Now, this is where a digital analyst puts the most effort. After collecting data you would pay attention to the details and analyse the data. You would have to work with numbers, texts to understand the information and jot down the observations. 

Analysing data will help you figure out insights that will drive the organisation to make decisions. Data analysis will lead to extract actionable insights. Visualising data can help to easily comprehend it and use it for data-driven decision making. 

Act on the data:

Analysis of data holds no meaning if you do not act upon it. Once data is analysed, it is time to act upon the insights. 

You can share the insights for collaborations. For instance, a data analyst would collaborate with marketing, designing and other teams to work on the campaign that would align with the interest of both the parties. Collaborating with other teams will help getting better results. 

Conclusion:

Data-driven decision making has become a critical enabler of success in today’s business landscape. By harnessing the power of data, organisations can gain valuable insights, drive innovation, and achieve sustainable growth. 

Embracing a data-driven culture and investing in the right tools and technologies are key steps towards realising the full potential of data-driven decision making. Ultimately, businesses that prioritise data-driven practices will be better positioned to thrive in an increasingly data-driven world.