One of the most critical processes we go through every day in our day-to-day activities, both in the personal and professional sides of the story, is the decision-making process. What is the essential input we need to make the best decision? Information. When do we know we took the best decision, after we see the result, or when we go through the process, and we are able to analyse every possible angle that the information we have provides? The answer is easy if we had the availability of the information at the proper time. We took the best decision possible, regardless of the result. Best case scenario.
Now, let´s go to the “worst-case scenario” and let us crumble it. What happens when the information is not there on time? Or even if you have the information, “the numbers don´t make sense”, and eventually, you lose trust in whatever information you may have. This is real chaos.
But where there is a problem, there´s always an opportunity, and where there is a will, there´s a way. There are specific steps to go from this chaos and get to the certainty we need in every aspect of our lives.
Initially, when we do not have information, a problem that requires a decision-making process is mostly influenced by intuition, which elevates the level of entropy or uncertainty. The decision process will not be based on knowledge. The next stage is when we start to have the information available, but the information is not ordered. It is still chaotic and does elevate even more the level of uncertainty. As information keeps flowing, and there is a structure that helps the interpretation, we start to see a path towards certainty.
To take the concepts described above to what happens in many companies, with their current technological solutions, we find many informational gaps created that are “covered” using spreadsheets. The most typical situations faced in organisations are the following:
– Functionality Gaps – current systems are not able to fully support the business processes from beginning to end.
– Configuration/custom limitation – many solutions have limitations in adapting to clients needs, so they do it the other way around.
– Reporting features – the access to the information in the database is limited and not flexible enough for the user to be independent of technology staff.
– Integration issues – the systems in many organisations operate as silos and create the need for double capture of data and disintegration of the processes.
– Poor usability – Systems are not designed to have ease of use for every organisation’s profile. To complex user interface
– Cost – As the roadmap for the implementation progresses, and organisations realise that the actual cost is much more significant than expected and still bigger to complete the process, they decide to stop and leave unresolved business functions.
– Upgrades/updates – Either the cost of having the newest versions or the complexity of upgrading forces organisations to conform with what they have.
– Scalability – many solutions are made for a particular type of business model or a specific volume of transactions. Going above these creates chaos.
So, at the end of the day, there is clarity regarding what creates the issues. The root cause is easy to identify. Why do organisations keep on going in the path of chaos and not start to walk the path of certainty? Our EOS helps solve this issue and help intuition just be one of the ingredients in the decision-making process, but use as a basis reliable and available real-time information.
References
– “HR technology systems application gaps worldwide in 2019, by type”. Statista 2021. Accessed March 8, 2021.
– Barile, Sergio & Polese, Francesco. (2010). Linking the viable system and many-to-many network approaches to service-dominant logic and service science. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences.
Carolina Pacheco
Communication and PR Director