Research shows that we can only retain 10% of what we hear, and merely 20% of what we read. In addition, we can retain up to 80% of the data which we see. When data is concerned to be utilized in decision-making insights, that is why data visualization is considered the best approach. It helps in demonstrating the data. By default, human beings are visual creatures. Visual content can ignite our cognitive processes more vigorously as compared to plain text and audio notes. Furthermore, studies also reveal that almost 90% of the data being perceived by the human brain is visual in its nature.
On the other hand, decision-making is the most essential responsibility of business leaders. They come across multiple occasions on daily basis to decide from the available options. Their decisions create an irreversible impact on the outcomes of the organization. Most luckily, in this age of big data, business leaders’ decision-making capabilities are driven by insightful data. It helps them to make better choices. Otherwise, some of their decisions may have massive implications if not driven by real-time data. That is how big data is driving the decision-making tools of big corporates and businesses. It allows organizations to influence a huge amount of information. Although, we are producing a lot of data on daily basis. We produce almost 2.5 quintillion bytes of data only in a single day. However, the whole of the bulk data is useless if we cannot extract useful information from it. Furthermore, if we can extract useful information from the raw data. It is still useless if we are unable to turn this information into actionable insights to assist our decision-making tools.
In the above context, for decision-making purposes, it is highly recommended to present data in visuals. Because it gives useful insights and in return, more effective results. Data visualization can serve the purpose of extracting a higher number of insights from bulk data in an instant. By extracting actionable insights from the bulk of data, we can employ them to refine our decision-making tools. That is the reason, to perform better-informed choices, businesses are adopting data visualization tools and techniques. It makes them capable of doing error-prone decision-making.
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How an average person makes decisions?
Research has shown that an average person makes almost 35000 choices/decisions in a single day. Decision making capability of humans is way older than the emergence of the science of big data. Decision-making is solely an activity of the human mind. However, it is the mental process based on reasons, memories, emotions, and is inclined by biasness. Pre-formed opinions drive our actions during the decision-making process. Although, we try our best to formulate rational and logical conclusions to make good decisions. But several factors involved in our cognitive processes may limit our abilities to drive us towards the right decision making.
How Data Visualization improves Decision making
Here, we are going to analyze the ways data visualization can help us improve our decision-making abilities.
Improved Speed
This is the age of globalization, where information travels in the form of signals and at the speed of light. In a highly globalized business environment, managers and stakeholders are often expected to take critical decisions within no time. Getting late may cause a loss of an opportunity, which businesses can not afford. Even small problems that arose due to delayed decision-making may turn into exponentially growing devastations overnight. In such emergency scenarios, data visualization can help you extract actionable insights from the data. It can serve the purpose of making quick decisions within no time. Decisions and choices are driven by real-time data also minimize the risks of losses. Even a simple tool of data visualization whether a line graph or a bar graph can serve the purpose. It can give useful insights for actionable turns within few seconds.
High Accuracy
Business leaders are expected to be quick in their decision makings. Also required not to trade-off with accuracy when it comes to adopting speed. Accuracy and speed are the factors that sometimes become difficult to drive parallel. A speedy decision is highly probable to lose accuracy. We often adopt Heuristics to fill the gaps quickly through our mental shortcuts in case of missing information. These shortcuts are, no doubt, biased by our cognition. Such a practice has the potential to contaminate our quick decision-making process. Here comes the visualization of big data for relief. It provides all the information in an error-prone way. Data distributed over spreadsheets can be time-consuming to extract any insights from it. It can also create confusion and make our decisions makings vague. However, visualized data solve both the problems of speed and accuracy because of its efficient display of actionable insights.
Simplified Communication
A decision-making process is not just a mere combination of words or actions. Once a decision is taken, it is also required to be communicated with the lower hierarchy for its proper implementation. Communicating a decision is also an important practice that carries your thoughts to your workforce for subsequent steps to be followed. Visualization of data and simplifying your data analytics also simplify and streamline the communication process in an objectified way. A message that is communicated in a wordy format may confuse, or it may associate with it some unanswered questions. It may also give rise to biased opinions in the workforce. However, if it is referenced with any format of data visualization tools. No matters, in the form of graphical representation of facts or bar charts, it can serve the purpose very efficiently. It will also provide answers to all those questions which may not be communicated clearly, otherwise. In fact, it is useless to urge the workers to take effective actions when the message is not delivered clearly.
Improved Collaboration
Good managers always give importance to the perspective of other members while taking decisions. Giving heed to other’s perspectives also improves your decision-making abilities. Research shows that if a decision-making practice is carried out by taking into consideration multiple perspectives. It helps in formulating better-informed selections. Data visualization gives rise to useful forms of data. It can universally be adopted even by an ordinary user of the information system. Data democratization into a universally consumable shape can empower people to formulate insightful opinions and better-informed perspectives. Such a collaborative practice of democratization of data can make them capable to contribute to the decision-making process. Provoking diversity into an organization’s decision-making environment is the attribute of leadership. It gives rise to high-impact decisions having the ability to introduce positive change. Great decision-making is a highly required attribute of business managers and leaders.
Conclusion
Visualization of big data, if managed to be visualized in an effective pattern, can put your business ahead of all the times. Utilizing big data for timely production of accurate decisions, and simplification of communication gives an overwhelming edge over the competitors. It can also help enhance collaboration between the team members for increased productivity. Hence, data visualization empowers your decision-making tools by fueling them with speedy conjectures, improved accuracy, simplified communication, and enhanced collaboration.