Accenture study: Companies structured for gut-thinking, not analytics

An Accenture study released today has some grim news for the analytically-minded. The survey of 600 senior managers shows that more than half of the blue-chip companies have structures that block analytics from decision-making. The problem: There’s not enough talent, and the talent they have is often cordoned off in a geek wing.

Interestingly, while 71% of the top managers expressed strong commitment to statistical analysis in their companies, they often don’t practice what they preach:

“…The research revealed that senior managers currently fail to see fact- and data-driven analysis as critical when making key business decisions and instead rely heavily on …gut feel…”; and …” factors such as consultation with others, intuition and experience….”

Makes sense. If you’ve crawled your way to the top of a big company, you’re probably pretty confident in the gut-based decisions that guided you. So analytics might be fine for everyone else… As today’s Times op-ed on dysfunction at Microsoft makes clear, the status quo has a rock solid constituency in just about any company.

…

READ

How Retail Shifted from Business Intelligence to Data Science

Interestingly, while 71% of the top managers expressed strong commitment to statistical analysis in their companies, they often don’t practice what they preach:

“…The research revealed that senior managers currently fail to see fact- and data-driven analysis as critical when making key business decisions and instead rely heavily on …gut feel…”; and …”factors such as consultation with others, intuition and experience…”

Link to original post