From whiteboards to dashboards: why digitally-transformed businesses make better decisions

Business leaders make the smartest decisions when they have answers to questions like what’s selling, who’s buying it, and how profitable it is. But to get those answers, they need the right data at their fingertips—as it’s happening. Companies can generate that real-time data—by excelling at information-based decisions.

At a glance

• Companies that master information-based decision making tend to be more profitable and generate more revenue than those that don’t.
• They have one undisputed source of decision data that provides a single view of customers and business performance.
• To set up an information-based decisions system, companies must determine what data are essential and how best to gather, visualize, and disseminate it.
• For example, they can use dashboards that report performance data on growth metrics, margin metrics, and expense metrics.
• They can also use the data to manage expenses more effectively—for example, by making more controlled spend decisions based on transparency into their company’s entire supply chain.