Blog: Dan Power

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Reduce decision cycle time AND improve accuracy

Micky Long and Sumair Dutta recently completed a report for Aberdeen Group titled "Get Smart: Business Intelligence for Service Organizations".

Do managers and executives need to make faster and more accurate decisions? especially in customer service situations? Supposedly YES and in general I agree.

Can Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics tools help reduce decision cycle time? YES if deployed correctly. No magic in reducing decision cyclye time AND making more accurate decisions. Faster decisions can lead to less accurate decisions if decision support technology is poorly implemented.

"Aberdeen found that nearly 80% of service executives surveyed either have in place or plan within the next twelve months to implement a BI / analytics solution within their service operation."

The marketing email I received from Aberdeen Research claimed:

"Best-in-Class firms gained 37% in first-time fix rate since adoption of business intelligence or analytics."

"Best-in-Class firms gained 42% in performance on service level agreement since adoption of business intelligence or analytics."

"Best-in-Class firms gained 57% in performance on customer retention since adoption of business intelligence or analytics."

The 20+ page report costs USD $395. I haven't read it, but I am very skeptical of a report based on survey data when few firms have adopted a specific decision support technology for the same purpose. It is so easy to compare and tabulate apples and oranges, very different DSS. Also, is "best-in-class" the early adopters?

I would need to know much more information about the sample, the questionnaire and the data analysis before I used this report to justify purchasing technology in a service organization to enhance customer service. If you have read the report and think it is an important contribution to understanding the impact of BI and analytics, please send me an email: power@dssresources.com.

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