When something about your business isn’t working, you set out to change it, right? Naturally. But how do you decide what changes to make in order to fix the problem? In many cases, decision-makers rely on gut instinct to guide their organizations in a new direction. Sometimes this works out; however, it’s unnecessarily risky. Arm a decision-maker with some data analysis and he or she is able to make a more informed decision.
So why don’t more businesses utilize the wealth of data that’s available to them? According to Piyanka Jain and Puneet Sharma in their book, Behind Every Decision: How Anyone Can Use Business Analytics to Turn Data into Profitable Insight, many businesses don’t bother analyzing data because they don’t have an “analyst” on staff. While a highly skilled analyst can be very valuable asset, anyone can be trained to do basic analytics, and in many cases, this basic level of analysis provides sufficient insight to steer a business in the right direction.
If you’re interested in learning a variety of analytical techniques and how to use analysis to guide decision-making, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“There is a costly misconception in business today - that the only data that matters is BIG data, and that complex tools and data scientists are required to extract any practical information. Nothing could be further from the truth. In Behind Every Good Decision, authors and analytics experts Piyanka Jain and Puneet Sharma demonstrate how professionals at any level can take the information at their disposal and leverage it to make better decisions. The authors’ streamlined framework demystifies the process of business analytics and helps anyone move from data to decisions in just five steps...using only Excel as a tool. Readers will learn how to: clarify the business question; lay out a hypothesis - driven plan; pull relevant data; convert it to insights; make decisions that make an impact. Packed with examples and exercises, this refreshingly accessible book explains the four fundamental analytic techniques that can help solve a surprising 80 percent of all business problems. Business analytics isn’t rocket science – it’s a simple problem-solving tool that can help companies increase revenue, decrease costs, improve products, and delight customers. And who doesn't want to do that?”
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