How to use data and analytics to navigate business turbulence

The ability to quickly gather pertinent facts and data points about your business is key to making informed decisions and overcoming any crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic we’re going through now.

This is a period of great anxiety and uncertainty for businesses around the globe. But by tapping into reliable data and real-time analytics, organizations can take action to improve their situation. They can quickly course-correct if they see their business going sideways, reallocate resources to areas where they’ll do the most good, and make effective decisions to survive and succeed in these challenging times.

Periods of crisis will always happen, whether it’s a terrorist attack, a global conflict, a market crash or another pandemic. But humans adjust. It’s what we do best. We usually bounce back better and stronger than before-and this time should not be any different.

Here are four ways that the effective use of data and analytics can help your company as you enter the recovery phase and plan a brighter future.

Years ago, it was possible to fly your business by hand, because information arrived at a manageable pace. You could take in data, evaluate it and adjust your course at a deliberate pace, with a key spreadsheet or three keeping track of the numbers.

But today you have so much data coming at you in real time that it’s hard to gather it, organise it and put it to good use. A lot of companies simply get overwhelmed, throw up their hands, and keep flying straight into the bad weather ahead. That’s a big mistake because you will have a rough flight and could very well crash.

Instead, get the tools you need to gather and analyse data. This way you can see turbulence before it arrives, navigate through the clouds avoiding the worst of the storm and resume a smooth flight path on the other side.

Airlines long ago recognised that instrumentation is vital to the safe and efficient operation of their aircraft. The cockpit instruments provide pilots with crucial data like altitude, airspeed and heading. They also can show the impact of headwinds on fuel consumption or calculate the fuel margin available after a significant detour-so much more than they can gather with the naked eye. By the same token, the best corporations now rely on data and analytics to manage their operations, rather than fly blind from one hair-raising incident to the next.  Breaking down silos between your front and back office functions lets you know not just how much fuel is left in the tank, but what’s the weather like between you and your target, and should you be speeding up, slowing down, or trying a different path to dodge the worst of the storm.

There is a vast array of different data sources today. Often, different sources tell you different things. For example, at the moment we have the president saying one thing about the pandemic, state governors saying another thing and health officials saying something else entirely.

How do you pull all the signals together and understand them to know the truth and make the right decisions for your business?

To start, you should identify what are the relevant signals. Of course, you want to capture those traditional signals that are in your internal systems. But don’t stop there. You should also capture unstructured data, like what you hear from your employees, customers and competitors.