Nigeria has produced and sold oil for many decades now but look how far it has brought us. Worse still, many countries are adopting solar as an alternative and giving serious consideration to the climate consequences of processing crude oil. Suffice to say; our precious ‘oil’ is no longer as bankable as it used to be.
You may now wonder, what the ‘new oil’ is? Well, the answer is simple: DATA. This is so because, everyone is beginning to appreciate the use, importance, and flexibility of Data Applied Statistics. Companies now appreciate the need to scale-up the knowledge acquisition within teams and employees in the organisations for the most sought-after skill of the decade – Data Science.
Data science combines mathematics, statistics, specialised programming, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning expertise to uncover actionable insights hidden in an organisation’s data. These insights can be used to guide decision making and strategic planning. The Benefit is that it will help the organisation in Data Driven Decision Making (DDDM) where key performance indicators (KPI’s), analysed patterns and facts from insights are utilised to develop strategies and activities that benefits the business in a several areas. Every organisation’s strength in this twenty-first century lies in their wealth of data and what they can do with it. Top corporate organisations have gone as far as building Data Warehouses for easy reporting and aid of Big Data Analytics. The Data Warehousing also helps to standardise data across the organisation, and helps the organisation move towards fact-based decisions, reduces cost and increases revenue.
The key question really is, who needs data in an organisation? The right answer is EVERYONE!!! Ranging from Customer Experience/Care, to Operations, to Marketing/Sales/Retail, to Finance, to Human Capital Management, to the Corporate Head Office.
In Customer Experience Centres, data informs us how many closed requests the centre has, the status of the requests – how many have been treated, escalated requests, voice of customer, agents performance, customer satisfaction rating, income generation, customer interactions count, trends on increase/decrease of customer interactions, customer behavioural patterns etc.
In Operations Management, data can add value to business by using its data to develop solutions and optimize day-to-day operations management. It helps organisations to make accurate demand prediction/forecast for the future requests to aid the operation. Data science helps to minimise potential errors by establishing processes and policies for usage and building trust in the data being used to make decision across operations. Companies can respond more efficiently to market changes as well as customer needs with reliable and up-to-date data.
10 TIPS FOR Taking Data-Driven Decision Making
- Guard against your biases
- Define Objectives
- Start Gathering Data
- Look for your unresolved questions
- Find the data needed to solve these questions
- Analyze the data and understand
- Don’t be afraid to revisit and re-evaluate
- Present the data in a meaningful way
- Set measurable goals for decision making
- Continue to evolve your data driven decision
Data obviously guides an informed decision in organisations. There is no better time than now – We all need to embrace data today!! DATA is the New Oil. #EMBA28
