The crystal ball is broken: How data and technology enable decision making and help you see through the fog

No crystal ball could have predicted global events during the last few years. This blog explains how using data and technology can enhance your decision-making.

Let’s take a second to reflect on some of the events of the last few years.

• Covid-19
• Brexit
• The blockage of the Suez Canal (amazing what an impact one grounded ship had!)
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine
• The energy crisis
• Crypto booms, crashes and frauds
• Mass hiring and mass firing in big tech

The list goes on. And now the arrival of many AI tools, available to the mass markets, which have the potential to completely disrupt every industry that it touches.

Who could have predicted all of these events would happen in such a ‘short’ period of time?

But hold on…disruption and uncertainty is nothing new!

There are historians that can show that this kind of disruption is nothing new. And I am inclined to agree with them. Let’s just look at the last 100 years.

• WW1 and WW2
• The Great Depression in the 1930’s
• The oil crisis in the 1970’s
• The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
• The global financial crisis of 2008

So the need to be agile and adapt to survive has always existed, and it continues.

But, that being said, it really does feel like a lot of things in a short space of time right now. And as much as ever, businesses need to be able to act quickly and effectively to give themselves the best chance to survive and hopefully succeed.

So, risks continue to exist. But there are now new ways to navigate these risks.

So business risks have always existed, and they will continue to exist. But what companies have now, that they didn’t have before, is technology that can help them navigate these uncertainties at a speed and capability that wasn’t previously possible.

Companies that are embracing data and technology to be agile with decision making are positioning themselves to not only protect against risks, but also unlock opportunities.

And indeed, one might argue that as we see wider and wider adoption. not having these capabilities will increasingly put you at a disadvantage…

The way in which you apply technology can improve your ability to make effective decisions.

So how can technology be your friend during times of uncertainty? I think that the ability to plan effectively should be a key focus when trying to steer the ship, and there are some capabilities I think that can help put you in charge at the wheel:

Agility: you need to be able to model multiple outcomes based on the latest available information.

Speed: the closer you can update your planning models to real-time, the better.

If you can model your data with speed and agility, your ability to execute effective decisions can scale up significantly. Real-time scenario planning is how more and more companies are putting these capabilities into action, and the way in which technology can help you do this continues to get better and better every day.

When you take real-time scenario planning into the meeting room, you can take your decision making to a whole new level by collaborating with others.

Ok, so maybe we know the technology exists, or at least know that it should exist. But how can you capitalise on the benefits from having speed and agility in your business modelling?

If I cut to the chase, I think it is ultimately when you are interacting with others, which is the time when you can really make the magic happen. When you are in meetings or interactions where decisions are made, being able to build and update scenarios that are reflective of potential decisions being made can make these meetings more productive than ever before.

Every business is different, but some examples of ways in which you can model scenarios in real time to drive decision making could include:

• Adjusting projected growth rates
• Market entry/exit decisions
• Understanding the impact of a lost customer
• Managing recruitment strategies
• Timing of significant capex investments
• M&A opportunities

Ultimately, every company has different decisions that it needs to make. But when you are able to model potential outcomes in real time by utilising your data, you can really give yourself the capability to act quickly, whilst still maintaining a strong level of control.

So where does that leave us?

Disruption is maybe nothing new. But more than ever before, using the right technology in the right way can truly put you on the front foot. You can switch from being reactive to being proactive in how you navigate times of uncertainty.

Although every company is different, I don’t see so many arguments against the benefits that can come from having that capability to build scenarios ‘on the fly’ as new information surfaces.

So, whilst there may be no crystal ball (at least that I know of) that will tell us exactly what will happen in the future, companies, like never before, can be agile with their data to give themselves at least some chance of seeing through the fog that lies ahead.

And whilst risks continue along the way, so too, do many opportunities.

To find out more, download our Organisational agility and proactive resilience whitepaper here

By Iain Main

Iain has been working at Bedford since 2021, and partners with customers around Europe to help them get the most out of Anaplan by utilising it in new ways across their organisations. He has also implemented Anaplan with a number of customers.

Prior to joining Bedford, Iain worked in various roles across finance in both large multinationals as well as start-ups and is passionate about the role that finance teams can play in driving organisational performance.