The competition between businesses today is defined by how well they can use data in making decisions. Collecting data, transforming it, and using it to make data-driven decisions has become easier than ever, and being bad at it means an organization will be left in the dust. If you’re looking to improve how your organization uses data, you must first understand why a data-driven approach is essential for success.

How does a Data-Driven Approach Help in Success?

While making decisions based on gut-feeling plays a role in critical business decisions, it’s too risky, and you don’t want to take unnecessary risks if you want to edge the competition. On the other hand, a data-driven approach helps you minimize risks as it allows you to understand the likely result of your decisions better. Hence, it gives you confidence in your decision-making as you no longer depend on opinion alone but on facts as well. Below are ways a data-driven approach is beneficial to any organization.

• It allows more precise prediction of outcomes as it helps discover valuable insights regarding their data. These insights enable organizations to test business strategies more accurately, ultimately improving future predictions.
• It makes market research a lot more efficient, given that your decisions become more well-studied and more impactful.
• It enhances the organization’s ability to scale. Being data-driven leads to the formation of clear goals and the measurement of results, promoting better performance and improving the capacity to pivot and take on new ideas faster.
• It improves operational efficiency and cuts costs by holding people accountable to the goals and measurable results. 
• It reinforces employee loyalty and engagement as it makes the reason behind every decision clear, which encourages fact-based discussions and discourages poor communication.

Practices that Lead to a Data-Driven Approach

Start from the Top

A data-driven approach begins with people on top of the hierarchy setting an expectation that all decisions must be made based on data instead of opinions. The top people should make it clear that this approach is the normal thing to do, not an optional approach to take only in niche situations. 

Carefully Determine Which Metrics to Use 

Metrics are what makes a data-driven approach run. Organization leaders should be wise and careful in choosing what should be measured and what metrics they need their employees to use. Measuring everything is inefficient, so it’s important to establish which metrics are most important to the organization. 

Improve Engagement with Your Data Scientists

One mistake many organizations make in creating a data-driven culture is isolating their data scientists. How are the scientists going to make a substantial contribution if they operate separately from the rest of the company? It may seem challenging to improve engagement with a team whose work nature is so different, but this can be done in two ways. 

First, you can pull the data science side to the business side by establishing a clear relationship between the two. For instance, you can rotate staff into line roles. The other way is to do it vice-versa: pull the business side towards the data science. This can be done by insisting that employees, especially organization leaders, be code-literate.

Prioritize Data-Access

Studying data requires access to data. When the business team has to go through a tedious process and wait for days before gaining access to data or outright cannot access it, all the data your organization has gathered and processed is wasted. Any organization seeking to create a data-driven approach should prioritize making data access quick and simple. Furthermore, issues regarding data access should be addressed immediately. One technique some organizations practice is using a small yet fast data organization program instead of a huge yet slow one. This small program will provide universal access to a few critical measures at a time. 

Measure Uncertainty

Being 100% certain of anything is impossible, especially in business. With this acceptance, you may think that quantifying uncertainty is useless, given that it’s always there. However, there are benefits to measuring uncertainty that make it essential in creating a data-driven approach.

When leaders are compelled to confront uncertainty in any decision they make, they are more likely to make better decisions for they understand the potential results better. Furthermore, data analysts will get a closer look at their own models when they consistently have to measure uncertainty. Lastly, an emphasis on uncertainty encourages companies to perform tests, expanding learning opportunities.

Conduct Training with Proper Timing

Many companies include specialized training in their employees’ onboarding, thinking it’s a great way to make everyone code-literate. However, this information dump results in new hires eventually forgetting what they learned as they often don’t get an opportunity to use it right away. A better way to train employees is to conduct the training just as the employees are going to need it. If an upcoming task requires staff to know a specific concept, teaching them this concept before being given the task increases the likelihood of the information remaining with them.

Remember That Analytics is not Just for Customers

Using analytics to help customers alone severely limits its potential. Organization leaders must keep in mind that they can use analytics to make their employees feel better about their jobs. Don’t make the mistake of shoving lessons down employees’ throats. Rather, you should present the opportunities to learn skills in instances where it will immediately benefit them, possibly by cutting down processing time and avoiding costly mistakes. 

Normalize Explaining Analytical Choices

Data scientists never find a single correct way to approach most analytical problems. Instead, they settle for choices while aware of their drawbacks. Considering this, it’s essential for any data-driven organization to make it a habit to explain analytical choices. Organization leaders should make it standard practice to ask teams how they approached analytical problems, what tradeoffs they accepted, and why they chose one approach over the other. This practice results in a culture wherein teams are encouraged to consider a broader range of alternatives in approaching problems.