CFO raises a compelling question: What is the Role of Intuition in a World of Big Data?
Here’s our take on a response: IDC promoted an interesting view on the type of decisions made in an enterprise that is a useful framework for evaluating how technology can assist decision making.
On one end are strategic decisions. There are relatively few decisions and each decision can have a significant impact on the business. They typically involve high degrees of collaboration and do not lend themselves readily to automation. For these decisions, intuition and experience play a significant role.
On the other end are tactical decisions. There are many of these made each month, no single decision will have a significant impact on the business, they are more often made individually and by virtue of their recurring nature can be readily automated.
This latter set provides the low hanging fruit for analytics. We can develop routine analysis that can add to the decision-making prowess of the frontline employees. Imagine the impact of multiple smarter decisions being made on the frontlines. Infusing analysis into the frontlines of business creates a “bottoms-up” culture of using analysis to drive smarter decisions throughout the decision-making spectrum.
