CRMTHE MISSING LINK BETWEEN DATA &

INTUITION FOR DECISION MAKING

INTELLIGENCE

i The Economist Intelligence Unit. Decisive action: How businesses make decisions and how they could do it better. Predictive Technologies.com, June 2014. <http://download.predictivetech-nologies.com/economist_intelligence_unit_report/>

ii Gartner, Inc. Gartner Predicts Three Big Data Trends for Business Intelligence.Forbes magazine, 12 Feb, 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2015/02/12/gartner-predicts-three-big-data-trends-for-business-intelligence/>iii Aronson, Daniel. Overview of Systems Thinking. Thinking.net, 1998. <http://www.thinking.net/Systems_Thinking/OverviewSTarticle.pdf>

TRADITIONAL PILLARS OF EXECUTIVE DECISION MAKING: Evidence and intuitionMembers of executive and leadership teams likely draw upon two reliable methods for decision making. They refer back to personal experience as well as data-driven evidence when making tough business choices. A study conducted by Predictive Technologies found that 65 per cent of professionals reported that management decisions are increasingly based on hard analytic information, while 54 per cent of that same group of individuals noted management decisions are made on intuition or experience.i

This overlap in methods for decision making highlights the fact that data and intuition will continue to have a role to play when leaders manage growth and change. Leaders leverage data because of its ability to reveal hidden trends. And they also leverage their executive-level experience to identify what’s significant about that data within its proper context.

A NEW THIRD PILLAR FOR EXECUTIVE DECISION MAKING: Systems thinkingRecently, technology in the form of data-driven analytics platforms has emerged as the key to unlocking value from information. Gartner predicted that by 2020, information will be used to reinvent, digitalize or eliminate 80 per cent of business processes and products from a decade earlier.ii This technology calls for a new understanding. By digging deep into business functions and processes and the data generated within these embedded systems, leaders can effectively transform their company’s productivity and efficiency.

With a history in science and societal organization, an approach known as systems thinking provides the missing link between data and intuition.iii

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iv Alter, Steven. The Work System Method: Systems Thinking for Business Professionals. University of San Francisco, USF Scholarship Repository, January 2011. <repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=at>

v The Economist Intelligence Unit. Decisive action: How businesses make decisions and how they could do it better. Predictive Technologies.com, June 2014. <http://download.predictivetech-nologies.com/economist_intelligence_unit_report/>

SYSTEMS THINKING: How work and data flows from origin to destinationSystems thinking relies on a fundamental understanding of each component in an ecosystem. When applied to the business world, this decision making method focuses on the underlying infrastructure and employee processes within a company. This means uncovering how data flows throughout a company—from when and where information is first collected until it is finally applied.

Every organization has completely different internal processes. By identifying and understanding how they’re implemented across an entire organization, the systems thinking approach can start to make headway into transforming how a company does business.

Steven Alter, professor at the University of San Francisco and expert in systems thinking, states that business professionals need to frequently evaluate systems in order to identify whether or not “potentially important data” is accessible.iv Data doesn’t necessarily have to be abundantly relevant, specifically defined or even newly

created to launch an analysis of it. But, the information must be managed, stored and always be discoverable at all times.

THE DECISION MAKING HURDLE AND THE CRM SOLUTIONFor many companies, trying to organize, manage and act upon data can become a daunting task. For example, 56 per cent of professionals cited silos as the biggest barrier to decision making. Data that is contained and segregated within a company poses a huge barrier for attempts to implement a systems thinking approach, according to a Predictive Technologies report.v

Today, the CRM has emerged as the foundational platform on which to build systems thinking-based processes. The flexibility of best-of-breed CRM platforms such Salesforce creates ecosystems within organizations that facilitate data management, storage, and visualization.

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Here are just a few examples of the efficiencies that CRM systems afford:

• Redundancies reduction: With the vast amount of structured and unstructured data contained in various apps and programs, CRM solutions can prevent the collection of duplicate information, while allowing employees to access credible data at all times.

• Silo mitigation: With a single storage location—such as a cloud-based CRM system—data is easily discoverable and accessible for varying business processes. The traditional walls between departments dissolve.

• Real-time feedback generation: As CRM solutions collect more information, it becomes easier to identify trends and patterns in real-time, making it much simpler to uncover insights that relate to specific clients, customers or industry trends.

• Data flow identification: CRM systems are critical in

tracking who entered information, when they did so and under what circumstances. With that knowledge, organizations are getting to the heart of systems thinking.

The adoption of a CRM solution introduces organizations to a systems thinking approach. As a tool, it enables companies to map out the flow of information to make impactful changes on their core functionalities.

DECISION MAKING FOR THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE: A combination of approachesTo make accurate, efficient and effective business decisions, organizations need to leverage all three decision making approaches: hard data, intuition and systems thinking. By marrying 1) evidence-based reasoning with 2) judgements formed through personal experience, and 3) injecting that with an understanding of data and work flows, leadership teams can gain access to insights that will help them make the best possible decisions at the right time, in the right way.

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