June 18, 2019
Any function of the business is reliant on accurate and relevant data. Be it supply chain, finance, sales or manufacturing — decisions need to be made about day to day operations and future forecasts. Without having an accurate overview of the current business, the decisions for future actions come down to management experience and gut feeling.
„Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion“ — W. Edwards Deming
Would you be willing to bet the future of your business just on the opinions of your management team or would you like to make the decisions based on the facts and measures?
Fortunately, the world is not just black and white. We do not need to choose between the extremities of having no data or having all the data. There is always a place for management experience that can and should be augmented with the hard facts of the underlying business data.
At this stage you may be thinking that you are already doing this. The management already gathers the data from the ERP, MRP or any other operational system before making decisions. You already have a lot of reports with multitude of data points that should help you and your team make the best decisions for your business.
In the very beginning I mentioned that businesses need data, but not just any data, the information that you work with should be also accurate and relevant. It is of no use to just collect all the data in the business, if it is not accurate and relevant to the current situation. Irrelevant data can hinder the decision process and overwhelm the team. It is all too easy to refer to the gut feeling if there is enormous amount of information flowing in.
Why then is it a good idea to digitalise the business even further if we can already feel that the amount of data we work with is overwhelming? Because, by integrating systems and eliminating manual processes, we actually reduce the noise around us. Rather than manually interpreting and merging the different kinds of data generated by the business, we aim to use only the most relevant information for guiding our decisions and automate as many repetitive tasks as possible.
Digitalisation can be seen as an enabler for accurate decision making. It helps to direct the focus on the areas most in need of attention, without bias, based on the hard facts of data. Trivial and repetitive tasks will be off the table and automated, and the management can focus on what really matters in terms of improving and advancing the business.
Joonas Nurk is the Head of IT Governance and Integrations at Neurisium. He is responsible for directing Customers toward the Digital Future. He uses his experience in Business Intelligence and large scale digital projects to improve the business processes of our Clients.
