Let the evidence prevail
HAVE YOU ever wondered why we consider some companies as giants or pioneers?
Is it their remarkable innovations or their fact-based approach that makes them market leaders? Often, it is a company's ability to acquire facts and make the right decisions that distinguishes them from others.
How can one decide whether the decision taken is right? Most businesses are fact-centric today; companies need to know the truth to survive. Empirical analysis of facts was widely used in the field of healthcare a decade ago. Now it is gaining momentum in other fields too. More and more companies have realised the benefits of the method. This change is attributed to venture capitalists providing financial assistance to companies provided they have enhanced and augmented their market value.
Evidence-based management: a system, an approach
Evidence-based management is about experimenting with ideas and being aware of the success factor in the market. An analytical study of facts helps a company realise why a certain product has failed or why a particular merger has been disastrous. This way executives learn from their mistakes.
Traditionally, managers made crucial strategic decisions in accordance with the boss's ideas or organisational interests. In trying to conform to the conventional notions, the functionality of the decisions had been relegated to the backseat. Scant efforts were made to determine the extent to which the decision taken was instrumental.
This explains why the `inner circle ` or the executives of the company's `core group' alone were authorised to take decisions regarding restructuring of the company, mergers and acquisitions, designing a new product, or creative ways of advertising a product.
Need for facts: Use of evidence-based management to evaluate progress, provides a competitive advantage. It is true that at times qualities like intuition, logic, optimism and out of the box thinking might prove to be beneficial. But, one cannot forebode the same at all events.
Executive logic hasn't yet got a hold on customers' minds and interests. One can never predict what product or idea might catch a customer's fancy.
Therefore, if a company is considering a merger, it should make a factual survey of its market image, the extent to which the customers will accept the merger and the benefits it will bring.
Several companies conduct online surveys to seek feedback from customers about the services they offer. This empirical approach enables companies to comprehend customer's opinions and expectations about their products and services.
Seeking best evidence: Companies should decipher the best of all the available evidence. That evidence must have stood the test of time to be called the best evidence. For instance, a new, jazzy product proves an instant success.
However within a few weeks the demand dips and finally there are no more takers. If the analysis were made on the reports of the first few weeks alone then the evidence would have been flawed.
Companies should thus give enough time for the opinions to be formed and consumers understand the concept.
Executives might shy away from several facts. However, they have no option but to learn it the hard way, they should learn to delineate evidence from wishful thinking to don the mantle of success.
SANDHYA.UDDANTI
faqs@cnkonline.com
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