Today’s companies have more data than ever, but many executives claim that their data analytics initiatives lack actionable insights and produce disappointing results. To move to a decision-driven approach, versus data-driven, a company—and in particular its leaders—must find data for a purpose rather than finding a purpose for the data. Decision-driven data analytics emphasizes the importance of asking questions and managerial judgment. Companies and leaders who take this approach benefit by ensuring that analytics initiatives are tied to action, are focused on answering the questions that matter, and challenge rather than bolster executives’ beliefs about how the world works.
