Most companies today still make key decisions based on the intuition or experience of their managers. Yet making decisions based on hard data is much more effective: they are up to 23 times more likely to win a new customer. And 6 times more likely to keep them.
The figures are based on a survey by analyst firm McKinsey, and other research confirms that data is worth its weight in gold for today’s businesses. For example, according to BARC, companies that base decisions on data are 8% more profitable and have 10% lower costs.
In large companies, these percentage savings can mean millions of crowns every month.
Democratising data makes everything easier
Business managers are naturally aware of the importance of data. In surveys, almost everyone admits that it is important for a company to base its decisions on data. The reality? Barely half of companies do.
In their defense, managers most often say that:
- do not have enough data to make a decision,
- the data is poor quality, expensive or late in reaching them,
- the data is difficult to process and grasp.
In recent years, however, there has been a significant democratization of data, allowing anyone to collect data and for even complex data to be read by data laymen – senior managers, middle management or even ordinary employees.
The democratization of analytics has been enabled by special software and BI tools that process complex analytical outputs in the background. They offer users clear graphs and outputs that can be accessed in seconds and with a few mouse clicks.
All analysts have to do is prepare data inputs and set up a system for collecting them. The system takes care of everything else.
The results tend to be stunning
Southwest Airlines, the world’s largest low-cost airline, spent more than $5 billion (about 115 billion crowns) on fuel each year. So it deployed analytical tools to collect data on its planes, which it then used to optimise the amount of fuel for individual flights or recommend optimal speed and altitude to pilots.
As a result, it saved 2% of fuel each year – a total of more than CZK 2 billion.
Or take Netflix. It is crushing its competitors, led by HBO GO, thanks to data. And the US Walmart used data to show all its competitors the back of the hurricane crisis.