Are Numbers Telling You the Whole Story- the Curious Case of Relying Only on Big Data

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Complying with corporate guidelines and associated legislation is essential for the growth of any company. However, for most restaurant chains and retail operations, how area managers uphold those expectations can differ from one location to another. If administrators go against organizational practices, this may be a disappointment. Still, there’s nothing more optimistic than when a creative person comes up with a brilliant new idea to enhance existing processes. Just like digging for a gem in the rocks, it can be difficult to find such brilliant ideas.

Challenges Posed by Information Obtained from Big Data

Employing the insights obtained from big data such as health and safety reports, site inspection results, and sales numbers, it becomes very easy to acquire a bird’s eye view of how efficiently one location is performing as compared to another. However, there are certain key elements that organizations tend to miss out on while employing big data.

For instance, if you employ checklists to ensure structure in your processes, you can easily deduce trends that can continuously help you improvise your business. Checklists can also assist you in figuring out how each manager or franchisee is working towards achieving your company goals. However, when an organization needs to gain an in-depth understanding of the performance of various locations and the difference in the numbers obtained from them, many face a dead-end.

The challenge with the analysis of big data is that while it allows you to make forecasts and crunch numbers, it is not so smart to include variables whose figures cannot be found in your business projections. Across the hundreds of locations your organization has, each of your managers may perform the processes in varying manners. One may have a technique they employ to boost revenue significantly. Another may have come up with different ways of health and safety assessment to increase protection for staff and consumers.

At the same time, many of your locations might find it difficult to meet their targets since they do not have actionable insights compared to other locations. Often, the process efficiencies brought about by local operations go unnoticed by the organizations because of how they collate and study the information. When sales figures in a certain location are scaling new heights, and others are failing, the ideas employed by the former location can prove to be a great boost for all other sister locations. Ignorance of such innovative ideas and process efficiencies can cause the organization to miss out on path-breaking enhancements.

Process Optimization via Checklists

One of the most common concerns regarding the adoption of process standardization via checklists is the perception that it brings about monotony. Although performing tasks in a similar manner can become monotonous and boring for employees, it assists in yielding improved efficiency and productivity in the overall process. The reward of the perfection achieved in the end-result often sends a wave of positivity among the employees and the organization.

Micromanaging is generally deemed as a negative idea. It can feel invasive, and productivity can slow down. But what if a small amount of micromanaging prove to be beneficial for your staff? What if it could assist in enhancing those locations that are struggling to keep track of the goings-on at successful locations? Replacing the ‘macro’ information obtained from big data with ‘micro’ level observations via checklists and organized activity can assist in acquiring a clearer view of how each location is working towards achieving their targets, and how the successful ones are getting their things done.

One way to induce positivity into your organization is to ensure that leadership reports their behaviors, ideas, and strategies via checklists in an organized manner. You can choose to allocate your managers, monthly, weekly, or daily checklists, where they fill in the information regarding the processes employed, which will help you remove bling spots in the information acquired via big data.

Conclusion

With checklists, the innovations incorporated by your managers can be utilized to bring about efficiencies in other locations, and the manager’s ideas may not get lost in the humongous data sets. They may stand a chance to shine; let Pulse be your guide, and help you through it. These novel ideas and strategies, which are generally missed out by information obtained via big data, can be employed to enhance, and improve the processes across your organization. Pulse will help you organize every task and help in self-auditing, checklists etc.; it’s a huge guide to your everyday tasks.