The process of making decisions based on data may be applied to virtually every facet of a company. As the world continues to take a digital form, data-driven decision-making becomes more crucial.
Among the marketing channels, the data-driven approach is therefore quite popular, especially with the introduction of AI in Marketing campaigns. Data analysis by using surveys and feedback in the ongoing campaigns to track clients’ preferences and demographics will help develop strategies.
Keep reading this article to learn about the benefits of decision-making based on valid data, and how you can use it to flourish your business.
Examples of Data-Driven Decision-Making
In the following, we’ll have a look at some examples of data-driven decision-making that have been implemented in the real world.
Marketing and sales
According to Windy Ko, HARO links specialist at HARO Link Building, ‘Let’s say, you’re sending emails: how many individuals get to see them, and at which hours of the day? When such details are available, you can precisely know how to pinpoint the flaws and rectify them for the next set of campaigns.
Though implementing the data to create the next action steps, to be resorted to primarily for branding and aesthetics is one of the great benefits of the experiment, you may also use them for this.
A/B testing allows one to compare two different designs of a new logo and or advertisement creative at the moment of evaluating which one is more successful, or it is even used for finding out whether one is appealing more for given specific audiences.
This will be accomplished by exhibiting a process whereby data is not a hindsight tool, only used for the future, but an intervention approach that helps with process monitoring.
Moreover, sales information might give you a clue as to whether to advertise or cut down on those not selling well or to discontinue them.’
It is step-by-step possible to pinpoint the punctum salient in the sales process for clients and automatically adjust the process there. AI systems can recommend actual purchases or watches that are suited to a customer’s history of viewing or purchase, to these companies, most of whom are following the footsteps of Netflix and Amazon.
Pro Tip: Here’s 5 Reasons Why Branding Is Important to Your Business
Supply-Chain
Apart from that, data-driven decision-making is helpful for uninterrupted inventory management too. When you need to replenish your stock it will be possible and you won’t have to order unnecessary amounts just because there is still some stock left.
You will have data to base your demand forecasting if only you measure the seasonal swings and have that at your disposal for use during the data-driven decision-making process. The purchase and warehouse management processes facilitate complex tasks such as measuring the number of orders that have arrived on time, and the quality of the delivery routes employed.
Also, this training will give you the knowledge required for data-driven decision-making on optimizing the process or even automation.
Finance
In the past, we have expressed the value of data orientation when planning the budget, but this is just one aspect of a much wider area of finance. Having the data available to you provides you with a view of past, present, and future accounts of your company.
This will give room for you to find and address areas where money is being mismanaged and make the right financial decisions. However, before investing in any given market, you will be required to analyze and take into account the hazards present in that market.
Not only will the data inform you on when and how to apply for financial assistance but also identifying if it may be the best route for you is also a benefit. You project growth in range for the run when you are showing the data to the prospective investors.
HR
‘Human resources professionals use data analysis on recruiting, turnover, diversity, and productivity to understand the subject under the problem. For example, trustworthy attendance records may aid in the efficient scheduling of staff, and a deeper understanding of engagement factors helps you to offer incentives and produce more productive employees.
Personnel predictions can also be brought up where, for instance, it may be profitable to precisely identify the employees who are the most likely to quit to act promptly.
Identifying the most capable employees for a management position can also be possible. The data shows you what works and what doesn’t work, and you now have some strategies you can reuse or improve’ says our expert, Richard Skeoch, Director at Hyperion Tiles
Customer Service
You have to resort to using feedback, surveys, sentiment analysis, and call center analytics for customer service benchmarking when you use data-driven tactics to interact with customers.
The process of data-driven decision-making on what to buy and use a product finally is a good way of finding out the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the consumer. Following that, the company can use this information to increase its services at the end. Here is a question that would help to give you an example: would you need more support staff, please?
7 Ways to Maximize SME Success With Data-Driven Decision-Making
Here are some methods that can help you maximize your SME success:
1. Create a Data-Driven Culture
Business in your case should have a data-based culture throughout the whole organization with the aim of data-driven decision-making. This should start with the placement of leadership in the picture and the understanding of data as indispensable by all the employees.
These enable them to be confident with the data. data literacy in its true sense is not a skill one can immediately acquire no matter how easy it is now for non-experts to get and work on data; knowledge takes time.
The training encompassing the kinds of activities that will promote critical thinking among your employees will be a requirement.
‘To realize what areas need to be developed, a survey needs to be conducted and the professional chosen should be an individual familiar with data and his/her courage may influence others too. Data literacy, in its real sense, means involving everyone in making it happen.
Therefore, people participation is likely to lead to increased engagement and collaboration, resulting in maximized lead generation. Therefore, you will be able to make sure that an integrated data-driven foundation is introduced across these management units of your company with your participation in the engagement.
This is the key, because you are aware of this, you will, therefore, be able to make any choice confidently because you are sure that you have the required evidence to support you. This leads from a new logo design to a profound analysis of investments.’ asserts, Mark McShane, Digital PR Agency Owner of Cupid PR
2. Set Clear Goals
For data-driven decision-making, be sure to define your goals as you would do for any other plan. ‘Immediately once you have decided on what you want, you have the chance to disable the unnecessary data to prevent complexity from bogging you down.
With the exploitation of historical data in operations, crucial measures such as key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics can be determined easily that need to be put in focus.
For the objectives not to be unachievable and conflicting with the main corporate goals, they have to be as specific and as detailed as possible.’ says, Timothy Allen, Director at Oberheiden P.C.
For example, what kind of strategies do you need to pick up and get more people to your website? It could be good to set the objective of raising it by e.g. 20% by the 2nd quarter of this year.
3. Get Organized
Companies possessing data are data-driven as they are extremely well-structured. To create out of dozens of data volumes this is the only way. Provide a clear plan on the way you will manage and analyze the data ensuring that such a plan will cover selecting the precise and quality data, which will be correctly stored.
Find out the data sources that you currently use and those that you may be using in the future. Then store it in one place, so anyone who reads it or uses it understands how it is connected.
‘First of all, you will need to process and categorize the data to find out the one you will need for data-driven decision-making. This will help you in your spaceship to remove the payload that is no longer needed in your mission.
Forming a data-management team comprising of an individual who plays the role of a data professional can be considered provided one has the resources’ advises Sasha Quail, Business Development Manager of claims.co.uk
4. Use the Right Tools
Part of the data tools that your team will need to use is the collection and evaluation of information. Such features would range from visualization tools to data analytics tools, all of which would be designed to support business users with little training and low reliance on IT services.
The business intelligence solution allows you to collect and deal with unstructured data of any size from both ‘internal and external systems,’ which practically means that they are not limited by the size of the data or the volume.
They do this fast by selecting the right stats automatically, and they analyze and offer you their findings without you having to do anything more except process the results, which, in turn, results in more time for other projects. The consequential use of data technology among AI-based systems helps to make appropriate data applications.
For example, some tools leverage data-suggested techniques for generating financial predictions, while others, such as Dear Data AI, use it to extract email segmentation data from your CRM.
5. Visualize the Data
The main intention of direct messaging (DM), is to identify useful insights and subsequently be successful in their communication. ‘Since people mostly comprehend the data better that is shared visually, it is the ideal approach to communicate the data.
By using the attributes such as charts, graphs, and heat maps, it is much easier to notice trends and patterns within the data. Such insight would lead to faster, sound, and more conclusive data-driven decision-making.
Here, we take data visualization as a for instance of a financial dashboard, which shows us the company’s financial figures (from liquidity ratios to income statements). Dashboard as the simplified representation of data can be considered a good example of data visualization.
Dara-driven decision-making based on real-time data will enhance process to react and respond promptly to the situation’ says, Adam Crossling, Marketing & New Business Director at zenzero
6. Encourage collaboration
If you get your company’s information from different sources and have it stored in a variety of locations with no communication between them, then it is much more difficult to verify if the data is of good quality up to par professionally. Furthermore, there is an increased probability of a replication of the required data which ultimately confuses you.
‘Maintaining the credibility of data products derived from different sources can be a challenge. In this aspect, an enterprise without data will make its departments and subsidiaries sticky; the organization should then phrase all its workers to foster these communication channels even across the different departmental lines that the organization has.
The data exchange is what brings in new insights and allows for wider thinking to in the long run bring new opportunities’ asserts, Dean Lee, Head of eCommerce at 88Vape. In addition, it is useful to be vigilant to look for unconscious bias to help move from which we assess and judge those issues through the lens of another person.
7. Track and measure progress
According to Arman Minas, Director at Armstone, ‘Based on data from past practices, whether the initiatives or campaigns you have employed worked well or not, you will be able to make educated choices to embark on new ones since you will know what to do and what to avoid.
Having that raw data right before your eyes enables you to fix the issues immediately rather than in the aftermath of the process. This will give you the ability to act faster and tackle any issues that arise or the emergence of new market trends. On one hand, however, cases where only rigorous evidence is taken as grounds for judgment are not often precise.
Every business action should be held to a kind of standard monitoring. As for you, if it is important to you, do not hesitate to withdraw and think again.’ Besides that, you need to measure the exactness of your data and determine certainly what metrics you are observing.
Final thoughts
You are the one who is supposed to use the info that is accessible so that you can know better what is going on around you. Having clear goals helps you, together with the strategy of data collection, structuring, and examining for any patterns and trends that can be of great help in the decision-making for the well-being of your institution.
The deepening knowledge of the data demands the necessary speedy adaptation to rapidly changing markets and customers’ expectations, hence making this knowledge critical.
By bringing data empiricism and transparency into your business, just by encouraging data literacy and sharing you will be able to find new options and win over your problem.
This is your opportunity Now to increase the alternatives of your small or medium-sized business by applying data-driven decision-making