Data-driven decision making

What is it all about?

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Did you know?

Lufthansa Group ( a global aviation group) increased efficiency by 30 percent, gained greater flexibility in decision making, and increased departmental autonomy. “We’re in a stronger position to create and design our analyses independently and a lot of people now understand the central importance of data for the success of Lufthansa,” shared Heiko Merten, Head of BI Applications in Sales.

SMEs also often benefit from data-driven decisions as they can react more swiftly to market changes and insights derived from data due to their size and agile nature. This can lead to improved customer experiences, more efficient operations, and better financial performance.

Learners will use online resources to gather and analyse data, understand market trends, and make informed decisions to enhance the business given in “Case Study – Family Hotel” performance and appeal.

How can I learn more ?

We need your help to make an informed decision about the future of the business illustrated in “Case Study – Family Hotel” using the data-driven decision-making steps.

As a first action, read “Case Study – Family Hotel” to be informed about the hotel background and challenges.
Before making any decisions, get yourself familiar with “data-driven decision making” linked in the resources section. Be careful, we’ll follow all 5 steps.
Now, we can start with the first step: “Know your vision”. Before you can make informed decisions, you need to understand your company’s vision for the future. This helps you use both data and strategy to form your decisions. Let’s apply the tips following the examples in the second resource and write a vision statement for the Family Hotel.
Once you’ve identified the goal of this business, you can start data collection. The tools and data sources you use will depend on the type of data you’re collecting. There are several tools that can be used to collect data such as Google Analytics, return on investment (ROI), total number of customers, etc. For this case, we will use a “Guest Review” spreadsheet.
Visualising your data is crucial to DDDM. With many visual elements like charts, graphs, dashboards, and maps, data visualisation is an accessible way to see and understand trends and patterns in data. There are many popular visualisation types to display information. For this specific case, you’ll build a dashboard via Polymer by either ready-to-use templates or creating your own board from scratch.
Once you’ve organised your data, you can begin exploring insights and findings to discover opportunities or risks that impact the success. The main questions to ask yourself when drawing conclusions include:

What am I seeing that I already knew about this data?
What new information did I learn from this data?
How can I use the information I’ve gained to meet my business goals?

The last step concerns turning this information into decisions, which means acting on your insights or sharing it with your team for collaboration. Successfully turning information into decisions may require a culture shift, from making decisions based on assumptions or gut instinct to making decisions that are firmly rooted in data-driven insights.

Test yourself

What have you learnt?

Completed a case study review.
Followed DDDM steps.
Analysed a data set and designed a data dashboard.
Formulated data-driven insights.
Explain the concept of data-driven decision making (DDDM) and its importance in business strategies.
Familiarise with DDDM steps and various data collection and visualisation techniques.
Recognize patterns and trends through data analysis to inform business decisions.
Analyse case studies to extract relevant information.
Formulate vision statements that align with business’ aspirations.
Collect data using specific tools like customer reviews.
Build dashboards or charts for data visualisation.
Perform data analysis and extract actionable insights to identify risks and opportunities.
An analytical mindset that prioritises data over assumptions or intuitions.
Cultivate a continuous learning attitude to adapt to new tools and methodologies in DDDM.
Foster a culture of collaboration for sharing insights for informed decision-making within a business.

Conclusion

In the module focused on data-driven decision-making (DDDM) applied to the "Family Hotel" case study, you engaged in a comprehensive process to understand and apply DDDM principles to a real-world business scenario. You crafted a vision statement, collected and analysed customer data, created visual dashboards, and turned insights into actionable strategies, thus understanding the importance of aligning decisions with a clear vision and using data to identify opportunities for business improvement.

For further learning, you could:

1.Check REWIND Training Plans Module 1 Critical Thinking in Worker Buy-out context to develop insights through a critical thinking process.

2. Apply DDDM to a different case study in your work sector to broaden your understanding.

3.Learn to use more advanced data analytic tools for deeper insights.