Make Corporate Decision Making More Scientific

MIT's Andrew McAfee posits that there is no change for organizations that is "as big as the transition from intuition-based decision-making toward an approach based on science."1  We've talked about this before; in our words,"making decisons based on fact, not opinion."  What happens to an enterprise when IT can provide the tools to allow more "scientific" decision-making?

Mr. McAfee states, "If you don't try to migrate your company and your decision-making in that direction, you're missing out on a huge opportunity, and you had better hope your competition is also not moving in that direction."  We agree.  In fact, we would offer that "he who applies the most science wins." 

A sample of a worst case scenario:  A meeting is convened by the CEO to discuss Customer Service.  "Our customer service is terrible," he says, "and it needs to be improved immediately!  I want a plan on my desk in two weeks!"  The meeting attendees all give a deep sigh, pull out their planners, and start scheduling meetings so that they can deliver a plan for improvement on time to the CEO.

A sample of the same scenario with a happy ending:  A meeting is convened by the CEO to discuss Customer Service. "Our customer service is terrible," he says, "and it needs to be improved immediately! I want a plan on my desk in two weeks!"  The head of Customer Service says, "Here are our stats.  We have a 95% first call resolution rate, we are looking at re-allocating two CSRs into other departments because we are so efficient.  Our customer satisfaction scores are higher than anyone else in our industry.  Why do you believe we have a problem?"  And the CEO says, "I got a letter from an unhappy customer, right here!" and he pulls out the paper and waves it around.  The Customer Service head asks for the letter, turns to her laptop, and accesses her CRM system, and then informs that CEO that this particular customer has already been taken care of and in fact has just completed a customer satisfaction survey in which he gave the company very high marks.  "In fact," she adds with a smile on her face, "he even tweeted about it."

Facts will save time, money, effort, anguish, toil, turmoil, and headaches.  Any war stories you would like to share?


1 These quotes are from an MIT Sloan Management Review Supplement to the June 2010 issue of CIO Magazine.