New report explores the data usage, collaboration, and productivity habits of senior business leaders and their employees. Contributor Ritu Mahandru, Managing Director – River.
UK businesses’ hopes of climbing out of a productivity rut are destined to fail as the overwhelming majority of business leaders continue to make decisions uninformed by data, according to the findings of a new report.
‘Data, Collaboration & Continuous Improvement’, published by Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, River, reports that two thirds of decisions made by C-suite executives are made without data, with many senior directors basing their decisions on opinions and gut feeling alone. Consequently, many businesses have fallen victim to the HiPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) effect – one of the biggest barriers to effective decision making and a real hindrance to productivity.
Alarmingly, while 78% of businesses set sales or profit targets, 76% of businesses did not set goals on productivity – neglecting the link between productivity and revenue. With the UK having been in the midst of a productivity crisis for the past decade, River’s report identifies seven key productivity challenges facing businesses within the UK – including archaic data sharing methods and decisions made in the absence of visible facts.
From there, River lays out a 5-step roadmap to increasing the productivity of the UK’s businesses. Steps on the roadmap include: Allowing teams to drive their decisions through data and Allowing teams to set their own goals.
Ritu Mahandru, Managing Director at River, said: “We need to be seriously questioning whether the right data in the right hands could unlock UK productivity. Meaningful data is just not visible enough, or used enough to inform business decisions. Having surveyed both C-suite execs and their employees, our report demonstrates how better informed decisions and a culture of collaboration could be just the solution to ending years of static productivity in the UK.”
