The Relevance of Data in Decision Making (Episode 2)

A quick recap, if you have not read the previous episode on The Relevance of Data in Decision Making, please click this link for a quick review.

https://africanmusings.com/2022/04/06/the-relevance-of-data-in-decision-making/

The wealth of decisions made is usually dependent on the accuracy of the sources of the data used in making an informed decision. Either of the sources of data can be explored to make informed decisions provided your confidence level is not lesser than 95%.

Looking into the other sources of data. While virtual data or secondary data are sourced with the aid of technology such as body heat devices used in the military to know the number of people in a room at a particular time for surveillance or the use of questionnaires for products online or by the use of internet technology to get data either structured or unstructured such as data from eCommerce platforms or online stores using applications such as SQL, ERP and others for sales report too can be categorized as secondary data.

Knowing that the accuracy of our data has an important role in our decision making as managers, it is important to identify that the precision and accuracy of both Organic and virtual data are not the same. This can also be put as the level of significance of both organic and virtual cannot be the same.

Take for instance, a military intelligence trying to neutralize a kidnapping hideout, one cannot go there and count the kidnappers physically before attacking. Such an attempt is suicidal and not fruitful hence you will use the body heat devices (infrared) and virtually monitor before you strike. Also, note that the body heat devices can also identify babies depending on the type of device as the heat produced by them is not too small to be picked by the radioactive signal of the device. This type of data collection can be seen as secondary data because of the use of technology to interpret the research i.e. the accuracy could be faulted resulting in unwanted casualties unlike Organic (primary data) which requires physical interaction, headcount and accreditation defined the effort and time.

Let’s take an account of a rice production factory manager that wants to take stock inventory in the warehouse and decided to count the numbers of rows and columns of each bag of rice stacked will take less time and effort if it were an organic data method.

As business managers, the importance of organic data in our decision-making process or business analysis cannot be overemphasized.  From sales inventory to factory workers’ salary or employee welfare ad well as customers review. A faulty data can result in faulty decision making which can cause an organization to lose or withdraw investors from investing in a business. Getting the right data for analysis is a step ahead of the sustainability of any organization.

To this end, chose the best accurate source of data to help make a meaningful decision.

See you on my other blogs, I remain my humble self.

Motunrayo Awomolo

(M.A.)