Businesses today have an unprecedented array of data that they can use to their advantage, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually putting it to use. The reality is, you have a wealth of information about your customers, and your organisation’s performance at your fingertips. From customer databases, sales records, point-of-sale-systems, social media, in-store engagement metrics and more. Data-driven decision-making benefits all areas of business: from your customers to your bottom line.

But despite the ease with which businesses can extract this information, many still base their marketing and sales strategies on guesswork. And this is why so many businesses eventually close shop. So how do you ensure that this wealth of information translates into data-driven decision-making?

Learn to use data to backup opinions

The members of the C-suite occupy their positions of power due largely, to experience. These are people who earn a living by making executive decisions, often based on opinion or ‘gut feel’, as opposed to data. To get everyone comfortable with regarding data as valuable, champion the airing of opinions, but make sure that these are supplemented and weighed up in hand with data. This is the sweet spot: data-driven decisions that are weighted by business acumen.

Collect data with an end goal in sight

If you’ve ever popped into the grocery store to buy ingredients for dinner, but you’re not sure what you actually want to make, you’ve probably ended up with a basket of random ingredients. In other words, a whole lot of mismatched ingredients. Mining data without a clearly-defined end goal in sight is exactly the same: you end up with a whole lot of information but aren’t quite sure what to make of it. To avoid gathering data for the sake of it, define what it is exactly that you want to do with it. Do you want to increase sales? Cut down on overhead expenses? Reduce marketing spend? Once you know what you want to achieve, you can provide the C-suite with the relevant data (and only the relevant data), to make razor-sharp data-driven decisions (and avoid unnecessary confusion).

Say goodbye to the “Us versus Them” mentality

Many businesses aren’t able to translate the information they have on hand into actionable insights and strategies due to a clashing of egos. While the C-suite might have one idea of the solution to a problem, your marketing team might have another. Throw in data that contradicts both of these, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. To truly make the most out of data, all parties need to shift their mindset and embrace a culture of collaboration. After all, when put to use correctly, data-driven decisions benefit everyone involved.

Make use of data analytic tools that are simple to use, and importantly, present data in a way that’s easy to understand.

There’s little point in championing data-driven decision-making if no one can understand the data in the first place. In fact, data analysts – both in-house and consulting externally – are often regarded as the gatekeeper: privy to information that only they can make head or tail of. Unsurprisingly, this perpetuates the belief that basing business strategies on data is a complicated affair that’s more effort than it’s worth. The good news is, if you’re using tools that are specifically designed to make unravelling insights as easy as possible, you and all of those involved don’t need to be data whisperers to reap the benefits.

Find out more about Blix Traffic, the tool that’s more than merely a foot traffic counter. Our software enables you to easily gather and understand customer engagement and store performance data that’s crucial to all operations.