business decision making assignment sample

Module 5: Decision Making

Assignment: your decision-making process, preparation.

The Decision Making module of your text provided numerous decision tools and methods to use during the decision process. In this assignment, you will draw upon your personal decision-making experience. As you learned in the module, people make decisions with our biases and preferred styles in play. You will describe your decision, what choices were involved, how you made your decision, and what the outcome was, relating your process to the rational decision-making process described in the text. The following steps will help you prepare for your written assignment:

• Thoroughly read the Decision Making module.
• Carefully consider the tools and methods described in the reading to assist with Management Decision Making.
• Think of a decision you have made or been involved in making. This could be a personal decision or a work-related decision.
• Outline your decision process as it relates to the six steps of the rational decision-making process described in the text:

Step 1. Identify the Problem

Step 2. Establish Decision Criteria

Step 3. Weigh Decision Criteria

Step 4. Generate Alternatives

Step 5. Evaluate Alternatives

Step 6. Select the Best Alternative

For example, if you’re writing about your decision to adopt a pet, the problem you identify in Step 1 might be that you were lonely in your apartment at night, and you’d always wanted to rescue a dog. In Step 2, you could describe the decision criteria you used to select a dog: your apartment only allows dogs under 25 pounds, you wanted a dog with short hair for easier cleanup, you would only travel to a rescue facility within 50 miles of your house, and so on. If you skipped any of the steps above, note that.  Include this outline in your written assignment submission.

• What is your preferred decision-making style?
• How does your style work for you? Are you always satisfied with your decisions?
• What method from the text would you consider for your future decision making?
• How important is decision making in the role of a business leader? Provide an example.

In addition to the text, you are encouraged to research decision-making methods using reliable and properly cited Internet resources. You may also draw from your personal experience with appropriate examples to support your references.

Your written assignment will be graded using the Written Assignment Rubric . Please review and keep it in mind as you prepare your assignment. Each component is weighted as follows:

10% Organization and Format

Adequate: Writing is coherent and logically organized, using a format suitable for the material presented. Transitions used between ideas and paragraphs create coherence. Overall unity of ideas is supported by the format and organization of the material presented.

40% Content

Adequate: All required questions are addressed with thoughtful consideration reflecting both proper use of content terminology and additional original thought. Some additional concepts are presented from properly cited sources, or originated by the author following logic and reasoning they’ve clearly presented throughout the writing.

40% Development – Critical Thinking

Adequate: Content indicates original thinking, cohesive conclusions, and developed ideas with sufficient and firm evidence. Ideas presented are not merely the opinion of the writer, and clearly address all of the questions or requirements asked with evidence presented to support conclusions drawn.

10% Grammar, Mechanics, Style

Adequate: Writing is free of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, allowing the reader to follow ideas clearly. There are no sentence fragments and run-ons. The style of writing, tone, and use of rhetorical devices is presented in a cohesive style that enhances the content of the message.

• Assignment: Your Decision-Making Process. Authored by : Betty Fitte and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

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Unit 6 Business Decision Making Assignment

Introduction

With the growing ramifications of changes and the evolved economic circumstances of industries all over the world, entrepreneurs have faced a number of challenges in making business decisions. Several variables influence company decisions in a deliberate manner throughout the business life cycle. Simply put, choice is the process of selecting one course of action from a set of possibilities. Although the focus of this unit 6 business decision-making assignment is on strategic planning, there are other aspects to consider, such as environmental influences, organisational activities, and the control system process.

1.1 Create a plan for primary and secondary data collection?

There are two sorts of decisions made primarily in the organization’s working system, as described in the brief:

Tactical decisions are an example of structured decision making, which is characterised by a predetermined framework and is repeated in nature.

Non-structured decision making is associated with a high weighted result and occurs seldom in the workplace. For improved decision-making, this sort of decision necessitated a high degree of data collecting.

As a result, corporate decision-making and business psychology are non-structured in nature and need a great deal of thought for the organization’s benefit.

Data may be collected in two ways: primary data and secondary data.

Primary data are particular and explicit in form, and they are collected for a specific purpose in order to have a comprehensive picture of all the relevant components. Secondary data, on the other hand, is acquired for a variety of purposes and used by others according to their own personal preferences. The process system below can be used to outline the plan for acquiring primary and secondary data.

Identification of subject matter- In this data collection, Kompas Holiday International was chosen as a tour operator, and as a consultant for this firm, I conducted a thorough investigation into all relevant elements. In order to make successful decisions, it is necessary to determine the subjective nature of the issues for which data is being collected.

Designing a survey technique- Adopting an effective approach for data gathering is required. It includes the use of sample surveys, questioners, and feedback forms, among other things.

Data gathering- Following the adoption of the appropriate survey technique, adequate data collection of both types of data is necessary based on the organization’s needs.

Analysis- In this process system, it will be determined how acquired data may be used by bifurcating all factors in order for Kompas Holiday International to make better decisions in product and service development (Enrique , 2011).

Conclusion- This is the end of the data gathering plan, after which the acquired data will be analysed to produce useful findings. Kompas Holiday International will utilise this information in this section to produce effective goods and services in a methodical manner.

The following pros and demerits may emerge from the gathered primary and secondary data.

Primary data is defined as information that is clear and precise in nature and is acquired for a specified purpose. This information might be used by Kompas Holiday International to assess client needs, demand, and expectations from tour operations. However, it may eventually lead to higher costs of goods and services, as well as the establishment of a time-consuming process system.

1.2 Presentthe survey methodology along with an appropriate sampling frame and strategy?

Data is acquired by numerous methods such as interviews, seminars, social programmes, and other ways in survey methodology. With the help of this poll, Methodology Kompas vacation international was able to quickly identify the client’s preferred course of action and successful activities using a systematic manner. It investigates individual unit sampling and population identification strategies, as well as survey data gathering tools such as questionnaire creation and ways for increasing the volume and accuracy of surveys. Structured sampling is the type of sampling that is associated with each unit of individual behaviour and is non-repetitive.

This form of sampling aids in the identification of the organization’s future tendencies as well as clients’ reciprocal behaviour. Non-structured sampling is the most important data since it gives a detailed picture of all the connected aspects that are utilised to evaluate the Kompas holiday international’s strategy plan. Here are a few non-structured sample techniques that the Kompas vacation international might employ to make better decisions.

Systematics sample- This is a statically calculated sample that is obtained by taking N clients and splitting them in half. Simple random sampling aids in gathering a clear picture of the client’s interest in seeing new locations and demonstrates how ordinary people would respond to the tours packages supplied by the organisation.

Stratified sample- This sampling aids in the collection of data from subgroups of clients by dividing them by age, gender, purchasing power, and other factors.

Cluster sample- This gives a clear picture of the client’s decision by looking at a limited number of groupings that reflect the entire area.

This sample data gives a wealth of information about the clients’ actions and their reciprocal behaviour with the products on sale. To execute this sampling survey, the business has assigned a team of ten employees and given them one month to finish the procedure.

2.1 Analyses the results to draw valid conclusions regarding new tour product development?

It is accompanied with central tendency values, as well as many ranges and variables such as range, interquartile range, and percentile range. With the goal of conducting a comprehensive examination of the data and information gathered. The central tendency data, or mean mode median, displays the best acceptable data that may reflect the entire arrangement of data obtained in a determined manner. The mean reflects the total of all the individual values at large and is the average indicative of all the data collected. The average expenditure of the data obtained from the clients is taken into account in this calculation. Following the calculation, the average client spending is £ 478.

Mode: Mode is the score with the most recurrence of events and transactions, and it is the score with the highest frequency of data gathered. The most recurrent frequency with the greatest order is £400-500, according to this collection of data ( Enrique, 2011).

The data that sits in the middle of the dispersion of all the gathered data is referred to as the median. In order to compute the median, the given data must be sorted ascending and descending. Following that, the cumulative frequency of clients placing orders must be calculated. With the help of Median, you can compute the median:

Analysis: Based on this calculation, Kompas Holiday International has to produce products and services packages in the £600 to £800 pricing range. As a result, the company’s recurrence in other price ranges of orders is minimal. As a result, Kompas vacation international marketing should manipulate its product offering packages based on the client’s preferred course of action. As a result, the company’s turnover will be large.

2.2 Analyze data using measures of dispersion (standard deviation) to develop a given business scenario for a new product development?

After analysing the computed represented values, it was discovered that the corporation should price its generated items and services between £600 and £800. Furthermore, the average price of travel packages supplied on the market is £ 478, which represents the average rate of clients booking packages. In addition, the greatest recurrence of the trips package is £650, implying that the corporation should price its new items in the £650 area. As a result of this information, it can be concluded that Kompas Holiday International has to produce new packages in a price range that more clients can afford in a simple and identifiable manner.

2.3 Analyzedata using measures of dispersion (standard deviation) to develop a given business scenario for a new product development?

Dispersion measures- In order to make successful business decisions and arrive at a measured conclusion, a firm must consider all connected elements such as risk and return. Variables, scatter, and spread are all terms used to describe the dispersion of values in variables.

The difference between the specified price’s maximum and minimum value is known as the range. For example, if the package’s highest specified price is £500 and its lowest is £200, the range for both is £ 300 (Markovi?. & Damnjanovi?, 2013).

The squared of standard deviationofrandom variables from their mean is variance, and it indicates how much a group of values is spread out from its mean.

(Standard deviation) 2= (478)2= £228484 Variance = (Standard deviation) 2= (478)2= £228484

3.1 Producegraphs and charts (pie, bar, line, give, histogram) using a spreadsheet to draw valid conclusions based on the information regarding the proposed project?

Graphs and charts- These are formal representations of data that are utilised to better comprehend the organization’s current and future trends.

Pie chart- This graph displays the frequency of sales orders in relation to price variations. This graph might be used by Kompas Holiday International to better determine the optimum pricing set for clients in order to improve sales orders.

Scatter graph—this graph is used to assess tourist actions in order to improve the development of tours, travel products, and services. In addition, the organisation will be able to determine which location is the most popular with customers.

3.2 Create a trend line on an XY- plot using a spreadsheet and use it to forecast future events within the chosen business context

The trend line is the most essential graphical tool for evaluating the company’s performance over a period of time. Several competitors of Kompas vacation international, as well as their current and projected market shares, have been included in this trend line. Furthermore, it will assist the firm in developing its tour product and services in accordance with the client’s preferred activities.

4.1 Launch of new project

For better decision-making, the management department might employ various technologies to generate fresh ideas for the development of effective new trip packages. The organisation can employ a variety of information technologies, including decision support systems, management information systems, and more (Sampath & Anjana, 201).

MIS stands for management information system integrated supported system, and it is used to focus on information system management in order to give efficient and improved decision making.

The organisation might enhance its operational, financial, and tactical level work in a decided manner in order to improve the efficiency of the management information system. The following action plan has been constructed to better understand the time necessary in implementing a new MIS system in an organisation:

7+4+16+11+4+12+11+11+22+22= Project duration a period of 120 days

Critical route- A critical path is a representation of the longest path that is used to finish project tasks in a certain order (Chu, 2012).

A®C®E®F®G®K®L

Countdown to 99 Days

4.2 Do you use financial techniques to examine the project’s viability, such as a feasibility analysis?

Financial tools- Kompas vacation international has access to a number of financial resources that it may use to gain a better understanding of the risk and return of the chosen information tools. These include NPV, IRR, Payback period, and others.

The difference between the present value of cash outflow and the present value of cash inflow is called net present value.

£3,000,000 – £2099300 = £900700 NPV

The internal rate of return, or IRR, is the needed rate of return for an investment. The corporation has defined an 11 percent necessary rate of return in order to receive the requisite return from the made investment.

The payback period is the amount of time that the organisation needs to recover the money it has invested. It is calculated using the initial cash inflow amount and needed cash outlay to set up a new MIS system.

Total cash outflow minus total cash inflow

The decision-making process is focused with maximising the advantages or productive outcomes from the chosen course of action, as well as assisting in the identification of all connected elements such as future uncertainty and other negative consequences in general. Finally, in order to conclude this report, it must be stated that the organisation must assess its clients’ data in a determined approach in order to make better decisions.

Chu, B. 2012;2011;, “Large deviations estimation of the windfall and shortfall probabilities for optimal diversified portfolios”, Annals of Finance, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 97-122.

Djokovic, F. 2013, “BUSINESS DECISION MAKING ON FINANCING OPERATING ACTIVITIES IN HOTEL INDUSTRY”, Socioeconomica : Scientific Journal for Theory and Practice of Socio-economic Development, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 67-79.

Enrique Benjamín Franklin Fincowsky 2011, “Business making decisions”, Contabilidad y Negocios : Revista del Departamento Académico de Ciencias Administrativas, vol. 6, no. 11, pp. 113-120.

Jayalakshmi, N.S., Ravindra, S., Nagaraj, K.R., Rupesh, P.L. &Harshavardhan, M.P. 2013, “Acceptable Deviation between Facial and Dental Midlines in Dentate Population”, The Journal of Indian Prosthodontic Society, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 473-477.

Majumdar, R. 2014, “Business decision making, production technology and process efficiency”, International Journal of Emerging Markets, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 79-97.

Markovi?, M., Ple?i?, K. & Damnjanovi?, I. 2013, “DECISION TREES USAGE IN BUSINESS DECISION MAKING PROCESS”, Socioeconomica : Scientific Journal for Theory and Practice of Socio-economic Development, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 107-115.

Mital, P., Goetschalckx, M. & Huang, E. 2015, “Robust material handling system design with standard deviation, variance and downside risk as risk measures”, International Journal of Production Economics, vol. 170, pp. 815-824.

Nadadur, G., Raschke, U. & Parkinson, M.B. 2016, “A quantile-based anthropometry synthesis technique for global user populations”, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, vol. 53, pp. 167-178.

Sampath, S. &Anjana, K. 2016, “Percentile Matching Estimation of Uncertainty Distribution”, Journal of Uncertainty Analysis and Applications, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-13.

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How to Write a Business Analysis Report [Examples and Templates]

Table of contents

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Business analysis reports are a lot like preparing a delicious meal.

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What Is a Business Analysis Report?

Why is analytical reporting important, what should be included in a business analysis report, how do you write a business analysis report, business data analysis report examples and templates.

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A business analysis report provides information about the current situation of your company. This report is usually created by the management to help in the decision-making process and is usually used by other departments within a company.

Business analysis reports can either focus your research on the effectiveness of an existing business process or a proposed new process. Besides, an effective business analysis report should also assess the results to determine if the process changes had a positive or negative effect on the company’s goals. In fact, according to Databox’s State of business reporting , an overwhelming majority of companies said that reporting improved their performance.

Analytical reports are the bridge that connects your company to an effective, data-driven business intelligence strategy . By leveraging analytical reports , you can make informed decisions about your organization’s most critical issues. You will no longer need to rely on gut instinct or anecdotal evidence when assessing risks, threats, and opportunities. Instead, you will have access to a wealth of reliable data to inform your decisions.

Here are some essential benefits of analytical reporting:

• Improve communication and foster collaboration – The most obvious benefit of business analysis report writing is an improvement in communication between all stakeholders involved in the project. Also, analytical business reports can help you to generate more trust and foster better collaboration among your employees and colleagues. By using data analytics reporting tools , you will be able to monitor your employees’ performance on a day-to-day basis. This will allow you to hold them accountable for their actions and give them greater freedom within the business as they know that their superiors have faith in their decision-making capabilities.
• Increase productivity – Without this level of shared insight, businesses struggle to stay on top of their most important tasks and can become less efficient. An effective analytical business report provides the information needed for more efficient internal processes and helps you find more time for strategic activities such as improving your business strategy or working on long-term goals .
• Innovation – In today’s digital age, the pressure to innovate was never greater. When consumers basically have everything they want at their fingertips, stepping up to the plate with a new and improved product or service has never been more important. With an accessible dashboard in place, you will be able to create data-driven narratives for each of your business’ critical functions. For example, if you are a software company, you can use the insights gained from report analysis done with your dashboard software to tailor your product development efforts to the actual needs of your customers. By doing so, you will be able to develop products that are better tailored to specific customer groups. You can also use the same information for developing new marketing strategies and campaigns.
• Continuous business evolution – When it comes to digital businesses, data is everything. No model lasts forever, so having access to a business dashboard software that allows you to constantly keep tabs on your business’ performance will help you refine it as time goes on. If there are any glitches in your business model, or if something isn’t panning out as expected, the insight offered by a business analysis report can help you improve upon what works while scrapping what doesn’t.

A business analysis report has several components that need to be included to give a thorough description of the topic at hand. The structure and length of business analysis reports can vary depending on the needs of the project or task.

They can be broken down into different sections that include an:

• Executive summary
• Study introduction
• Methodology
• Review of statistics

Reports of this nature may also include case studies or examples in their discussion section.

A report can be written in a formal or informal tone, depending on the audience and purpose of the document. While a formal tone is best for executives , an informal tone is more appropriate for technical audiences . It is also a good idea to use something like an executive summary template to report on the results repeatedly with ease.

A good business analysis report is detailed and provides recommendations in the form of actionable steps. Here we have listed some simple steps that you need to follow to write a good business analysis report. Report writing is a major part of the business analysis process. In this section, you will learn how to write a report for your company:

Preparation

Presentation.

Obtain an overview of what you want to analyze in the business report . For example, if you are writing a business analysis report on how to improve customer service at an insurance company, you will want to look through all the customer service processes to determine where the problems lie. The more prepared you are when starting a project, the easier it will be to get results. Here is what your preparation should look like:

Set your goals

The first step in writing this document is to set your goals . What do you hope to accomplish with this paper? Do you need to assess the company’s finances? Are you looking for ways to make improvements? Or do you have outside investors who want to know if they should buy into the company? Once you know what your goal is, then you can begin setting up your project.

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• Sessions . The number of sessions can tell you how many times people are returning to your website. Obviously, the higher the better.
• New Contacts from Sessions . How well is your campaign driving new contacts and customers?
• Marketing Performance KPIs . Tracking the number of MQLs, SQLs, New Contacts and similar will help you identify how your marketing efforts contribute to sales.
• Email Performance . Measure the success of your email campaigns from HubSpot. Keep an eye on your most important email marketing metrics such as number of sent emails, number of opened emails, open rate, email click-through rate, and more.
• Blog Posts and Landing Pages . How many people have viewed your blog recently? How well are your landing pages performing?

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Assess the Company’s Mission

It’s almost impossible to write a business analysis report without access to the company’s mission statement. Even if you don’t plan on using the mission statement as part of your business analysis summary, it can help you understand the company’s culture and goals. Mission statements are typically short and easy to read, but they may not include every area of focus that you want to include in your report.

Thus, it is important to use other sources when possible. For example, if you are writing a business analysis report for a small start-up company that is just beginning to market its product or service, review the company website or talk directly with management to learn what they believe will be most crucial in growing the company from the ground up.

Stakeholder Analysis

Who is your audience? Create the reader’s persona and tailor all information to their perspective. Create a stakeholder map that identifies all the groups, departments, functions, and individuals involved in this project (and any other projects related to this one). Your stakeholder map should include a description of each group’s role.

Review Financial Performance

Review the financing of the business and determine whether there are any potential threats to the company’s ability to meet its future financial obligations. This includes reviewing debt payments and ownership equity compared with other types of financing such as accounts receivable, cash reserves, and working capital. Determine whether there have been any changes in the funding over time, such as an increase in long-term debt or a decrease in owners’ equity.

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One piece of data that you would be able to discover is the average gross profit a month for B2B, B2C, SaaS and eCommerce. Knowing that you perform better than the median may help you evaluate your current business strategy and identify the neccessary steps towards improving it.

Instantly and Anonymously Benchmark Your Company’s Performance Against Others Just Like You

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• Understand where your business excels and where you may be falling behind so you can shift to what will make the biggest impact. Leverage industry insights to set more effective, competitive business strategies. Explore where exactly you have room for growth within your business based on objective market data.
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Examine the “Four P’s”

“Four P’s” — product , price , place, and promotion . Here’s how they work:

• Product — What is the product? How does it compare with those of competitors? Is it in a position to gain market share?
• Price — What is the price of the product? Is it what customers perceive as a good value?
• Place — Where will the product be sold? Will existing distribution channels suffice or should new channels be considered?
• Promotion — Are there marketing communications efforts already in place or needed to support the product launch or existing products?

Evaluate the Company Structure

A business analysis report examines the structure of a company, including its management, staff, departments, divisions, and supply chain. It also evaluates how well-managed the company is and how efficient its supply chain is. In order to develop a strong strategy, you need to be able to analyze your business structure.

When writing a business analysis report, it’s important to make sure you structure your work properly. You want to impress your readers with a clear and logical layout, so they will be able to see the strengths of your recommendations for improving certain areas of the business. A badly written report can completely ruin an impression, so follow these steps to ensure you get it right the first time.

A typical business analysis report is formatted as a cover page , an executive summary , information sections, and a summary .

• A cover page contains the title and author of the report, the date, a contact person, and reference numbers.
• The information section is backed up by data from the work you’ve done to support your findings, including charts and tables. Also, includes all the information that will help you make decisions about your project. Experience has shown that the use of reputable study materials, such as  StuDocu  and others, might serve you as a great assistant in your findings and project tasks.
• A summary is a short overview of the main points that you’ve made in the report. It should be written so someone who hasn’t read your entire document can understand exactly what you’re saying. Use it to highlight your main recommendations for how to change your project or organization in order to achieve its goals.
• The last section of a business analysis report is a short list of references that include any websites or documents that you used in your research. Be sure to note if you created or modified any of these documents — it’s important to give credit where credit is due.

The Process of Investigation

Explain the problem – Clearly identify the issue and determine who is affected by it. You should include a detailed description of the problem you are analyzing, as well as an in-depth analysis of its components and effects. If you’re analyzing a small issue on a local scale, make sure that your report reflects this scale. That way, if someone else reads your work who had no idea about its context or scope, they would still be able to understand it.

Explain research methods – There are two ways to do this. Firstly, you can list the methods you’ve used in the report to determine your actions’ success and failure. Secondly, you should add one or two new methods to try instead. Always tell readers how you came up with your answer or what data you used for your report. If you simply tell them that the company needs to improve customer service training then they won’t know what kind of data led you to that conclusion. Also, if there were several ways of addressing a problem, discuss each one and why it might not work or why it may not be appropriate for the company at this time.

Analyze data – Analyzing data is an integral part of any business decision, whether it’s related to the costs of manufacturing a product or predicting consumer behavior. Business analysis reports typically focus on one aspect of an organization and break down that aspect into several parts — all of which must be analyzed in order to come to a conclusion about the original topic.

The Outcome of Each Investigation Stage

The recommendations and actions will usually follow from the business objectives not being met. For example, if one of your goals was to decrease costs then your recommendations would include optimization strategies for cost reduction . If you have more than one suggestion you should make a list of the pros and cons of each one. You can make several recommendations in one report if they are related. In addition, make sure that every recommendation has supporting arguments to back them up.

Report Summary

Every business analysis report should start with a summary. It’s the first thing people see and it needs to capture their attention and interest. The report summary can be created in two ways, depending on the nature of the report:

• If the report is a brief one, that simply gives a summary of the findings, then it can be created as part of the executive summary.
• But if it’s a long report, it could be too wordy to summarise. In this case, you can create a more detailed overview that covers all the main aspects of the project from both an internal and external point of view.

Everything comes down to this section. A presentation is designed to inform, persuade and influence decision-makers to take the next action steps.

Sometimes a slide or two can make them change their mind or open new horizons. These days, digital dashboards are becoming increasingly popular when it comes to presenting data in business reports. Dashboards combine different visualizations into one place, allowing users to get an overview of the information they need at a glance rather than searching through a bunch of documents or spreadsheets trying.

Databox offers dynamic and accessible digital dashboards that will help you to convert raw data into a meaningful story. And the best part is that you can do it with a ‘blink of an eye’ even if you don’t have any coding or designs skills. There is also an option of individual report customization so that you can tailor any dashboard to your own needs.

Pre-made dashboard templates can be extremely useful when creating your own business analysis report. While examples serve as inspiration, templates allow you to create reports quickly and easily without having to spend time (and money) developing the underlying data models.

Databox dashboard templates come with some of the most common pre-built metrics and KPIs different types of businesses track across different departments. In order to create powerful business insights within minutes, all you need to do is download any of our free templates and connect your data source — the metrics will populate automatically.

Business Report Examples and Templates

Databox business dashboard examples are simple and powerful tools for tracking your business KPIs and performance. These dashboards can be used by executive teams and managers as well as by senior management, marketing, sales, customer support, IT, accounting, and other departments. If you are new to this kind of reporting, you may not know how to set up a dashboard or what metrics should be displayed on it. This is where a premade template for business dashboards comes in handy.

For example, this Google Ads Report Template is designed to give you a simple way to keep track of your campaigns’ performance over time, and it’s a great resource for anyone who uses Google’s advertising platform, regardless of whether they’re an SMB, an SME or an enterprise.

KPI Report Examples and Templates

KPIs are the foundation of any business analysis, and they can come in a multitude of forms. While we’ve defined KPIs as metrics or measurements that allow you to assess the effectiveness of a given process, department, or team, there are a number of ways to evaluate your KPIs. Through the use of color-coding, user-friendly graphs and charts, and an intuitive layout, your KPIs should be easy for anyone to understand. A good way to do this is by having a dedicated business analyst on your team who can take on the task of gathering data, analyzing it, and presenting it in a way that will drive actionable insights. However, if you don’t have a dedicated analyst or don’t want to spend money on one, you can still create KPI reporting dashboards using free KPI Databox templates and examples .

For example, this Sales Overview template is a great resource for managers who want to get an overview of their sales team’s performance and KPIs. It’s perfect for getting started with business analysis, as it is relatively easy to understand and put together.

Performance Report Examples and Templates

All businesses, regardless of size or industry, need to know how well they are performing in order to make the best decisions for their company and improve overall ROI. A performance dashboard is a strategic tool used to track key metrics across different departments and provide insight into the health of a business. Databox has a collection of 50+ Performance Dashboard Examples and Templates which are available for free download.

For example, if your business is investing a lot into customer support, we recommend tracking your customer service performance with this Helpscout Mailbox Dashboard which will give you insights into conversations, your team’s productivity, customer happiness score, and more.

Executive Report Examples and Templates

An executive dashboard is a visual representation of the current state of a business. The main purpose of an executive dashboard is to enable business leaders to quickly identify opportunities, identify areas for improvement, pinpoint issues, and make data-informed decisions for driving sales growth, new product launches, and overall business growth. When an executive dashboard is fully developed, as one of these 50+ Databox Free Executive Examples and Templates , it offers a single view of the most important metrics for a business at a glance.

For example, you probably have more than one set of financial data tracked using an executive dashboard software : invoices, revenue reports (for accounting), income statements, to mention a few. If you want to view all this data in one convenient place, or even create a custom report that gives you a better picture of your business’s financial health, this Stripe Dashboard Template is a perfect solution for you.

Metrics Report Examples and Templates

Choosing the right metrics for your business dashboard can be crucial to helping you meet your business objectives, evaluate your performance, and get insights into how your business is operating. Metrics dashboards are used by senior management to measure the performance of their company on a day-to-day basis. They are also used by mid-level managers to determine how their teams are performing against individual goals and objectives. Databox provides 50+ Free Metrics Dashboard Examples and Templates that you can use to create your company’s own dashboards. Each is unique and will depend on your business needs.

For example, if you are looking for ways to track the performance of your DevOps team, and get the latest updates on projects quickly – from commits, and repository status, to top contributors to your software development projects, this GitHub Overview Dashboard is for you.

Small Business Report Examples and Templates

A lot of small business owners don’t realize how important it is to have a proper dashboard in place until they actually use one. A dashboard can help you track and compare different metrics, benchmark your performance against industry averages, evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing and sales strategies, track financials, and much more. So if you’re looking for a tool to help you measure and manage your small business’ performance, try some of these 50+ Free Small Business Dashboard Examples and Templates .

For example, this Quickbooks Dashboard template can help you get a clear understanding of your business’s financial performance, ultimately allowing you to make better-informed decisions that will drive growth and profitability.

Agency Report Examples and Templates

Agency dashboards are not a new concept. They have been around for years and are used by companies all over the world. Agency dashboards can be powerful tools for improving your marketing performance, increasing client loyalty, and landing new clients. There is no single correct way to create an agency dashboard. Everyone has their own goals and objectives, which will ultimately determine which data points you choose to include or track using a client dashboard software , but with these Databox 100+ Free Agency Dashboard Examples and Templates you have plenty of options to start with.

For example, you can use this Harvest Clients Time Report to easily see how much time your employees spend working on projects for a particular client, including billable hours and billable amount split by projects.

Better Business Reporting with Databox

Business analysis is all about finding smart ways to evaluate your organization’s performance and future potential. And that’s where Databox comes in.

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Sign up today for free to start streamlining your business reporting process.

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The Definitive Guide to Business Decision-Making

By Kate Eby | August 24, 2018

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Making decisions — both large and small — is critical to the success of a business. Decisions come from the need to solve a problem or the need for a potential opportunity. Gathering the right amount of information and input from key stakeholders is essential for making informed decisions. Following one of the few accepted processes to collect intel and objectively weigh the pros and cons of the data can help steer you away from making unsound decisions. In this article, you’ll learn about popular decision-making processes and how to apply them to your own business.

What Is the Decision-Making Process?

The decision-making process involves identifying a goal, getting the relevant and necessary information, and weighing the alternatives in order to make a decision. The concept sounds simple, yet many people overlook some of the critical stages and risks that occur when making decisions. Wherever possible, it’s important to make the best decisions under the circumstances.

There are at least four strong benefits to making good decisions:

1. Good decisions last longer. You will rarely need to revisit a decision that was made using a well thought out process, and it can sometimes last the entire lifespan of an organization.

2. Good decisions weigh internal and external factors. A decision-maker should consider a company holistically. A sound decision won’t have one part of the business succeed at the expense of another. Both internal and external factors can affect the decision and the company's road map.

3. Good decisions eliminate conflicts of interest. With transparency and stakeholder buy-in during the decision-making process, questions or concerns after the fact become far less likely. The benefits of this process keep the organization on track and focused, and reduce churn.

4. Good decisions actually work better overall. Good decisions actually get the decision-maker, department, and company closer to their goal, and solve the initial problem.

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What Is the Decision Making Process Model?

Following a formal process with specific steps can help businesses make more informed decisions (see more benefits to using a formal process ) and propel it forward. In fact, using a decision-making process tailored to the business world reaps enormous benefits that include the following:

• Less Second-Guessing: If you follow a formal business decision-making process, you can demonstrate you've already considered various other options.
• Translatable and Sharable Decisions and Progress: You can share the processes and steps upward to top management and the C suite, as well as downward into the ranks of those who'll be involved in executing the decision.
• Guide or Roadmap: Capturing the decision-making process in writing can be useful to show stakeholders an explanation of the steps and strategy behind it, as well as provide backup details.

The late Harvard business professor and author J. Richard Hackman wrote many books about effective business leadership, teamwork, and decision-making, including Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances . Empowering teams to make their own decisions and following the processes that work for them, Hackman explains in his book, results in cohesion and strength. But in making strong decisions, he adds, “Teams taking in too much data to make decisions can result in an overload trap , which can result in a team metaphorically drowning in data.” Therefore, it’s critical to be strategic at every step of the process.

How to Improve the Decision-Making Process

It’s critical to build evaluation into the process. Ensure that at least one of the steps includes evaluation and revisiting the process and its outcome, especially for future use. Additionally, get sign-off from all stakeholders in advance (even for the steps in the process) and keep them in the loop. Capture metrics along the way that show successes, failures, the comparative benefits of options you’ve considered, and research into what competitors have done, to help support your responses and keep the process moving smoothly.

Types of Traditional Processes in Business Decision-Making

Before we examine the various stepped plans in decision-making, we will explore a few specific types of decision-making. There are also several different actual processes that can be used in decision-making that involve a number of steps. The most popular and well-used processes have five, six, seven, or eight steps.

The number of steps will vary, of course, if you break down tasks that could be contained in a single step into additional steps. Regardless of the process you choose, evaluation is the last step, and smart companies will take the time to do this. Over time, organizations using this evaluation step can gain critical efficiencies in time and focus. It also helps ensure institutional learning for the overall health and strength of the company. All of the processes described in the following sections are in use today.

What Is the Five-Step Process in Decision-Making?

Many organizations follow the five-step process when making decisions. As you compare the following processes with the varying numbers of steps, you’ll see that some, like this one, combine activities, while others list them as separate steps. Here are the five steps in this process:

• Identify the end goal.
• Gather all your information needed to inform your decision.
• Evaluate all the risks and consequences.
• Make the decision and execute it.
• Evaluate the decision after the fact.

What Is the Six-Step Process in Decision-Making?

The six-step process focuses more on up-front research and information-gathering. This method front-loads the process with data that can make the rest of the process run smoothly. Here are the six steps in this process:

• Gather all the necessary information, and identify all the alternatives (without selecting one yet).
• Compare all these alternatives against the relevant criteria.
• Make the decision.
• Execute the decision.

What Is the Ethical Decision-Making Process?

The ethical decision-making process is a process that stipulates that any and all decisions must include evaluating and selecting options that are consistent with ethical concerns. This means making the most ethical choices, regardless of the impact to the bottom line. Ethical decision-making also means eliminating any options that are not consistent with ethical values from the beginning.

According to the University of California San Diego , which cites the Josephson Institute of Ethics , ethical decision-making involves the 3 Cs:

• Commitment: Never wavering from choosing or doing the ethical thing, whether it costs more or not.
• Consciousness: Infusing your team and project members with enough awareness to own the ability to act ethically every day with moral certainty.
• Competency: The ongoing process of evaluating information as you go and weighing options that allow you to continually make the right ethical decisions. As conditions in the world change, having a strong competency to evaluate these changes is mission-critical to staying the course in being ethical.

How to Make a Decision Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process

The analytic hierarchy process ensures that you are using specific criteria and rating those criteria, instead of simply comparing alternatives you've used in the past. The process involves creating an actual hierarchy of sub-issues, which you then evaluate and examine. Then, you measure these sub-issues against each other and assign each a relative value on the hierarchy. In short, alternative solutions are examined, and then weighed against each other.

While some businesses use the analytic hierarchy process, it is often used in academic or policy-related scenarios. In this method, a decision is made with the most important issues considered or weighted more heavily, and higher on the hierarchy, than others.

What Is the Rational Decision-Making Process?

As its name implies, rational decision-making relies strictly on data, measurable steps, and calculated values. This process focuses on minimizing costs and maximizing benefits to the organization. To use this process effectively, it’s critical to factor in personal biases of those involved and solve for them. The five-step process is usually used in rational decision-making.

As opposed to ethical decision making, there's no subjective judgement about criteria and steps to reach a decision in rational decision-making. However, it's possible the same decision could be reached using both processes.

What Is the Managerial Decision-Making Process?

The phrase managerial decision-making process is similar to and sometimes used interchangeably with the more general term business decision-making . But in fact, managers may have more decisions per day, including those affecting employees, beyond the typical business decisions that need to be made in an organization. Managerial decision-making often follows the five-step process.

According to the educational group Management Study Guide, there are three main types of managerial decisions:

• Strategic: These kinds of decisions are typically made rarely. Not all levels of an organization are or need to be involved as the decision is being considered and decided. Examples of strategic managerial decisions include resource and investment, expansion or downsizing, mergers or acquisitions, investments, etc. These can take significant amounts of time and should not be rushed.
• Operational: These decisions also take time to be fully explored and made. Higher level ones may involve only the C-suite and/or directors, and can include decisions affecting output, company-wide policies, and culture. Lower-level decisions of this type affect daily operations, so are often handled by upper and middle management.
• Managerial: These are made by managers at every relevant level, from middle managers to the executive suite. They may cover issues like allocation of resources, the decisions to phase out or revise current products, the creation and introduction of new products, and the like. Every manager in an organization needs to be aligned and often involved in decisions at this level.

What Are the Best Practices in Any Business Decision-Making Process?

If you’re using a team to make a decision, it’s important to have the number of people involved. Hackman’s recommendation is to have about five people on a decision-making team. More than seven members, he writes, makes your decision-making group lose effectiveness.

Sometimes individuals need to make the decision, or perhaps just two C-level executives appoint themselves to make a decision. But Hackman’s study shows that overall, teams make 75 percent better decisions than individuals.

It’s also imperative to identify and fill the correct roles in your decision-making team. Otherwise you are guaranteeing frustration and churn. The Harvard Business Review suggests using the RAPID methodology (recommend, agree, perform, input, and decide). This option provides a high-level way to capture the flow of the step-by-step processes.

As a first step, send your team members out to do research and ask them to answer these questions:

• What are the most important goals for the decision?
• What are the top realistic choices?

Audit and combine the results with the team to collectively agree on the top choices or identify gaps. Be sure to communicate and build in time for feedback and questions all along your process. This ensures buy-in all through the process. Sometimes using a decision-making matrix can also help your team identify and weigh options.

Read “Make Up Your Mind: Free Downloadable Decision Matrix Templates” to earn more about using decision-making matrices.

5 Potential Pitfalls to Avoid when Using a Formal Decision-Making Process

Before embarking on a decision-making process, it’s useful to keep some potential pitfalls in mind. Following a process is important, but avoid following the process “out the window.” Here are five potential issues that could arise when using a formal decision-making process:

• Proceeding without Enough Information, or Relying on a Single Source: If you’re going to follow a formal process, you’ll need data. Document each step and get buy-in from your colleagues. Information is power, and gathering information from relevant but diverse sources is critical to being strategic.
• Gathering Too Much Information: Too much or irrelevant information can be overwhelming and confusing, and can lead decision makers astray from the issue that needs the decision, as well as how best to arrive at it.
• Placing Too Much Confidence in an Option that May Cause Bad Results: Try to identify a valid option or options as you hone in on a process and  decision. Gather enough data throughout the process so you can play out scenarios for each option.
• Solving for the Wrong Problem: Front-loading research can be critical if you don't understand what's causing the issue. For example, if your production output has been slipping, don't assume that you need more staff, or more factory hours, or any one thing, unless and until you can identify the true reason for the slowdown.
• Being Too Rigid with or Wedded to the Process: It’s possible to follow a decision-making process so strictly that the organic nature of a business, staff, and their needs are sidelined or ignored. Even when you are strategically and confidently following a business decision-making process, you and your team need to have the ability to pivot if needed.

Examples of Decision-Making Processes Successes

In a sense, a company’s entire history is a reflection of making decisions. Some of the top companies in the world have turned a failure into a success by focusing on the last crucial step in all decision-making processes: evaluating the decision after the fact.

One example of this is Coca-Cola in 1985. Business and leadership expert John Addison writes that the company decided to address the changing soda marketplace by launching “new Coke.” Unfortunately, the rebrand failed miserably within three months, which forced the company to reintroduce the original Coca-Cola. The big takeaway: Reversing direction isn’t a sign of failure; rather, it’s evidence of a leader’s commitment to keeping the company’s health a top priority. What’s more, it shows how important it is to revisit and evaluate decisions.

Companies often use data to try a pilot or program, and if it doesn’t work, they might revisit the decision and change course. In other cases, large companies are constantly assessing data to find actionable paths. These three companies found success by making decisions based on data and stakeholder reviews:

• According to Harvard Business Review , Google created a people analytics department to help the company make HR decisions using data, including deciding if managers make a difference in their teams’ performance. The department used performance reviews and employee surveys to answer this question. The company learned that a laser focus on performance did not indicate the best or happiest teams; instead, managers with strong people skills had the best-performing groups — as well as employees who were happier and stayed longer at the company.
• When Amazon was still a startup, its data gatherers noticed that customers who bought a certain book or CD or DVD also were more inclined to buy another product. Perhaps these related products were by the same author or artist, or maybe the movies starred the same actors or had similar subject matter. Or, maybe they were just hot titles the customer wanted. Editors at this time had been taking on the role of “trusted adviser,” making recommendations based on purchases through emails and other human-created collateral, but the company thought that an automated tool could augment what the human editors could suggest. Ultimately, Amazon decided to use that data to create its first, rudimentary personalization tool. By presenting customers with products that other customers also bought, the company realized a significant spike in sales.
• Southwest Airlines famously studied its customer data to determine the perks and upgrades that would appeal to its regular flyers. Offering those perks and upgrades resulted in a boost in ridership and fierce loyalty among its customers.

These are examples of successes that relied on strong decision making, but of course, not all decisions succeed. Continually assessing and revisiting decisions is a sign of a mature company; otherwise, decisions could result in public failure. In the next section, we’ll look at some examples of failed decision making.

Examples of Decision-Making Process Failures

The failure of companies to adapt, change, or compete effectively probably can’t be tied to one bad decision or process failure. Still, in not rigorously gathering data, weighing options, and evaluating decisions, organizations can doom themselves. Here are some examples of companies that failed to use, or learn from, their decision-making processes:

• Blockbuster and Borders: Both of these once-successful brick-and-mortar companies   used data to reaffirm their own preconceptions instead of evaluating data objectively. Instead of adapting to the challenges and opportunities of the internet, their web properties and physical locations ultimately failed.
• Kodak: For decades this company was synonymous with photography in all its forms. But it didn’t fearlessly look at the changing landscape of digital photography. Even when it acquired Ofoto, it failed to maximize and monetize the opportunity. The company arrived late and quietly to the online photo gallery space with Kodak Gallery, which was subsequently acquired by Shutterfly.
• Newspapers: It’s hard to see a whole industry collapse because of bad decision-making and denial, but this is what began to happen in the late 1990s to newspapers. While some organizations, like the New York Times and Washington Post, have adapted to digital media, most city newspapers are struggling. Clinging to old business models never helped any business make strong, forward-looking decisions.

Team Building Exercises to Improve Decision-Making

If you’re ready to get your team energized to focus on making its decision, team-building exercises are a great place to start. These exercises help team members get to know and understand each other, which helps them get on the same page more quickly and ultimately improve their decisions. Here are some resources that can help you find the right team-building exercises for your decision-making group:

• Activities recommended by business experts
• More top activities recommended by business leaders
• Top team-building questions
• Top 20 team-building activities

The Decision-Making Processes in Non-Business Fields

In non-business fields, decision-making can involve more or fewer factors, with different kinds of weight assigned to each step. Here is a quick overview of some other types of decision-making processes:

• Consumer Decision-Making Processes: It’s important for marketers to recognize the steps consumers typically use to make a purchase decision. They include the following:
• Identify need. (I need a new winter coat.)
• Gather research and information. (What are the newest styles and warmest types of winter coats?)
• Evaluate the research. (So do I really need a new winter coat, or can I layer up with what I already have? If I need a new one, which one is best for my needs?)
• Buy the item.
• Evaluate the decision. (Was this winter coat a good decision? Am I happy I made it, and would I recommend this coat to other people, or buy it again for myself?)
• Military and Governmental Decision-Making Processes: For those in the military and other types of government roles, decision-making can be a matter of life and death. Therefore, the protocol for making military operations decisions is detailed and strict. 
• Education Decision-Making Processes: Many schools and school districts embrace shared decision-making , a process that involves members of the community, parents, students and former students, teachers, and anyone else invested in the success of a school or district. 

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4 Examples of Business Analytics in Action

• 15 Jan 2019

Data is a valuable resource in today’s ever-changing marketplace. For business professionals, knowing how to interpret and communicate data is an indispensable skill that can inform sound decision-making.

“The ability to bring data-driven insights into decision-making is extremely powerful—all the more so given all the companies that can’t hire enough people who have these capabilities,” says Harvard Business School Professor Jan Hammond , who teaches the online course Business Analytics . “It’s the way the world is going.”

Before taking a look at how some companies are harnessing the power of data, it’s important to have a baseline understanding of what the term “business analytics” means.

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What Is Business Analytics?

Business analytics is the use of math and statistics to collect, analyze, and interpret data to make better business decisions.

There are four key types of business analytics: descriptive, predictive, diagnostic, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics is the interpretation of historical data to identify trends and patterns, while predictive analytics centers on taking that information and using it to forecast future outcomes. Diagnostic analytics can be used to identify the root cause of a problem. In the case of prescriptive analytics , testing and other techniques are employed to determine which outcome will yield the best result in a given scenario.

Related : 4 Types of Data Analytics to Improve Decision-Making

Across industries, these data-driven approaches have been employed by professionals to make informed business decisions and attain organizational success.

Check out the video below to learn more about business analytics, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

Business Analytics vs. Data Science

It’s important to highlight the difference between business analytics and data science . While both processes use big data to solve business problems they’re separate fields.

The main goal of business analytics is to extract meaningful insights from data to guide organizational decisions, while data science is focused on turning raw data into meaningful conclusions through using algorithms and statistical models. Business analysts participate in tasks such as budgeting, forecasting, and product development, while data scientists focus on data wrangling , programming, and statistical modeling.

While they consist of different functions and processes, business analytics and data science are both vital to today’s organizations. Here are four examples of how organizations are using business analytics to their benefit.

Business Analytics Examples

According to a recent survey by McKinsey , an increasing share of organizations report using analytics to generate growth. Here’s a look at how four companies are aligning with that trend and applying data insights to their decision-making processes.

1. Improving Productivity and Collaboration at Microsoft

At technology giant Microsoft , collaboration is key to a productive, innovative work environment. Following a 2015 move of its engineering group's offices, the company sought to understand how fostering face-to-face interactions among staff could boost employee performance and save money.

Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics team hypothesized that moving the 1,200-person group from five buildings to four could improve collaboration by increasing the number of employees per building and reducing the distance that staff needed to travel for meetings. This assumption was partially based on an earlier study by Microsoft , which found that people are more likely to collaborate when they’re more closely located to one another.

In an article for the Harvard Business Review , the company’s analytics team shared the outcomes they observed as a result of the relocation. Through looking at metadata attached to employee calendars, the team found that the move resulted in a 46 percent decrease in meeting travel time. This translated into a combined 100 hours saved per week across all relocated staff members and an estimated savings of $520,000 per year in employee time.

The results also showed that teams were meeting more often due to being in closer proximity, with the average number of weekly meetings per person increasing from 14 to 18. In addition, the average duration of meetings slightly declined, from 0.85 hours to 0.77 hours. These findings signaled that the relocation both improved collaboration among employees and increased operational efficiency.

For Microsoft, the insights gleaned from this analysis underscored the importance of in-person interactions and helped the company understand how thoughtful planning of employee workspaces could lead to significant time and cost savings.

2. Enhancing Customer Support at Uber

Ensuring a quality user experience is a top priority for ride-hailing company Uber. To streamline its customer service capabilities, the company developed a Customer Obsession Ticket Assistant (COTA) in early 2018—a tool that uses machine learning and natural language processing to help agents improve their speed and accuracy when responding to support tickets.

COTA’s implementation delivered positive results. The tool reduced ticket resolution time by 10 percent, and its success prompted the Uber Engineering team to explore how it could be improved.

For the second iteration of the product, COTA v2, the team focused on integrating a deep learning architecture that could scale as the company grew. Before rolling out the update, Uber turned to A/B testing —a method of comparing the outcomes of two different choices (in this case, COTA v1 and COTA v2)—to validate the upgraded tool’s performance.

Preceding the A/B test was an A/A test, during which both a control group and a treatment group used the first version of COTA for one week. The treatment group was then given access to COTA v2 to kick off the A/B testing phase, which lasted for one month.

At the conclusion of testing, it was found that there was a nearly seven percent relative reduction in average handle time per ticket for the treatment group during the A/B phase, indicating that the use of COTA v2 led to faster service and more accurate resolution recommendations. The results also showed that customer satisfaction scores slightly improved as a result of using COTA v2.

With the use of A/B testing, Uber determined that implementing COTA v2 would not only improve customer service, but save millions of dollars by streamlining its ticket resolution process.

Related : How to Analyze a Dataset: 6 Steps

3. Forecasting Orders and Recipes at Blue Apron

For meal kit delivery service Blue Apron, understanding customer behavior and preferences is vitally important to its success. Each week, the company presents subscribers with a fixed menu of meals available for purchase and employs predictive analytics to forecast demand , with the aim of using data to avoid product spoilage and fulfill orders.

To arrive at these predictions, Blue Apron uses algorithms that take several variables into account, which typically fall into three categories: customer-related features, recipe-related features, and seasonality features. Customer-related features describe historical data that depicts a given user’s order frequency, while recipe-related features focus on a subscriber’s past recipe preferences, allowing the company to infer which upcoming meals they’re likely to order. In the case of seasonality features, purchasing patterns are examined to determine when order rates may be higher or lower, depending on the time of year.

Through regression analysis—a statistical method used to examine the relationship between variables—Blue Apron’s engineering team has successfully measured the precision of its forecasting models. The team reports that, overall, the root-mean-square error—the difference between predicted and observed values—of their projection of future orders is consistently less than six percent, indicating a high level of forecasting accuracy.

By employing predictive analytics to better understand customers, Blue Apron has improved its user experience, identified how subscriber tastes change over time, and recognized how shifting preferences are impacted by recipe offerings.

Related : 5 Business Analytics Skills for Professionals

4. Targeting Consumers at PepsiCo

Consumers are crucial to the success of multinational food and beverage company PepsiCo. The company supplies retailers in more than 200 countries worldwide , serving a billion customers every day. To ensure the right quantities and types of products are available to consumers in certain locations, PepsiCo uses big data and predictive analytics.

PepsiCo created a cloud-based data and analytics platform called Pep Worx to make more informed decisions regarding product merchandising. With Pep Worx, the company identifies shoppers in the United States who are likely to be highly interested in a specific PepsiCo brand or product.

For example, Pep Worx enabled PepsiCo to distinguish 24 million households from its dataset of 110 million US households that would be most likely to be interested in Quaker Overnight Oats. The company then identified specific retailers that these households might shop at and targeted their unique audiences. Ultimately, these customers drove 80 percent of the product’s sales growth in its first 12 months after launch.

PepsiCo’s analysis of consumer data is a prime example of how data-driven decision-making can help today’s organizations maximize profits.

Developing a Data Mindset

As these companies illustrate, analytics can be a powerful tool for organizations seeking to grow and improve their services and operations. At the individual level, a deep understanding of data can not only lead to better decision-making, but career advancement and recognition in the workplace.

“Using data analytics is a very effective way to have influence in an organization,” Hammond says . “If you’re able to go into a meeting, and other people have opinions, but you have data to support your arguments and your recommendations, you’re going to be influential.”

Do you want to leverage the power of data within your organization? Explore Business Analytics —one of our online business essentials courses —to learn how to use data analysis to solve business problems.

This post was updated on March 24, 2023. It was originally published on January 15, 2019.

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How to Make Great Decisions, Quickly

• Martin G. Moore

It’s a skill that will set you apart.

As a new leader, learning to make good decisions without hesitation and procrastination is a capability that can set you apart from your peers. While others vacillate on tricky choices, your team could be hitting deadlines and producing the type of results that deliver true value. That’s something that will get you — and them — noticed. Here are a few of a great decision:

• Great decisions are shaped by consideration of many different viewpoints. This doesn’t mean you should seek out everyone’s opinion. The right people with the relevant expertise need to clearly articulate their views to help you broaden your perspective and make the best choice.
• Great decisions are made as close as possible to the action. Remember that the most powerful people at your company are rarely on the ground doing the hands-on work. Seek input and guidance from team members who are closest to the action.
• Great decisions address the root cause, not just the symptoms. Although you may need to urgently address the symptoms, once this is done you should always develop a plan to fix the root cause, or else the problem is likely to repeat itself.
• Great decisions balance short-term and long-term value. Finding the right balance between short-term and long-term risks and considerations is key to unlocking true value.
• Great decisions are timely. If you consider all of the elements listed above, then it’s simply a matter of addressing each one with a heightened sense of urgency.

Like many young leaders, early in my career, I thought a great decision was one that attracted widespread approval. When my colleagues smiled and nodded their collective heads, it reinforced (in my mind, at least) that I was an excellent decision maker.

• MM Martin G. Moore is the founder of Your CEO Mentor and author of No Bullsh!t Leadership and host of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. His purpose is to improve the quality of leaders globally through practical, real world leadership content. For more information, please visit, www.martingmoore.com.

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