As Business leaders cope with the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, the need to ensure business continuity in the short term while being more resilient in the future in order to thrive in the post-pandemic era is top of mind. The key to these efforts will be decisive, data-driven leadership. More than ever, decision-making needs to involve a fact-based, data-driven approach to have a clear and accurate view of how decisions impact staff, customers, sales, and operations.
A recent survey, State of BI & Analytics Report 2020: Special COVID-19 Edition, indicates an increased importance and central role of examining data to enable organizations to understand changes and Business opportunities during and following the COVID-19 economic turmoil. In fact, 49% of companies surveyed use data analytics more or much more than before the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, companies have refocused their data usage to address the most pressing challenges and opportunities they face today. For example:
According to McKinsey, in times of crisis, leaders should reject traditional hierarchical models and “involve many more stakeholders and encourage different views and debate. This approach can lead to smarter decisions without sacrificing speed.” Business leaders require data-backed evidence to inform decision-making; however, it’s critical to understand any nuances, biases, or limitations of data. The pandemic is showing businesses, in real-time, that not all raw data is equally valid and not all forecasting models will show an accurate result.
To avoid this, bring in all key stakeholders, including finance, operations, technology, and others, to share relevant perspectives on the data. Some companies have implemented daily operations committee meetings to address pandemic “hot spots” and evaluate metrics dashboards to determine which areas of the business and technology need to be addressed.
In fact, according to McKinsey’s research, “prior to the crisis, our findings showed that those realizing higher returns from AI and scaling it more broadly were much more likely than others to assemble cross-functional teams to solve business problems (62% vs. 23%). However, during the crisis, we observed many organizations, regardless of analytics maturity, automatically assembling cross-functional crisis-response teams with all relevant stakeholders to develop analytics solutions for faster response.”
Communication is key across teams to collaborate and weigh in on metrics and data visuals, giving real-time feedback about the Organization’s immediate and long-term needs. Collaboration tools can allow for point-to-point communication and tracking the flow of operations. For example, technical leaders are capable of pinpointing the answers, but may not understand the larger problem or the data. When business leaders frame the objective, other stakeholders may be better at understanding the real meaning of the data and uncover potential areas of bias that could ultimately lead to poor decisions.
Organizations must keep customer safety, customer needs, and the customer experience as top priorities during the pandemic.
