Many Romanian companies could get big benefits from using data in business correctly. By using data effectively, a company is able to streamline the process of getting a product made and putting it in the hands of the customer. Looking at the data and incorporating it into the business strategy, is the role of the manager.

1. On what criteria do we select the information we work with in business?

Each company generates significant amounts of data. Moreover, managers now have access to detailed information about the industry in which they operate, their competitors, and the local and global economic context. The positive evolution of business is related to how this information is structured, selected, reported, analyzed, and used for decision making. Many companies now have complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that facilitate this process.

The criteria they use to select the information presented in the reports they can generate are often the following: finance, accounting, management, sales, human resources, procurement, production, logistics, etc. These criteria overlap with the company’s functions and provide simple or complex reports with systematized information for resource management and decision-making.

2. How do we choose the relevant information from a bunch of information that seems important at the first assessment?

We choose the relevant information from a wealth of information that seems important at the first assessment by applying the principles of data analysis. There are four broad categories in which we can include information from a business: strategic, management, operational, finance, accounting, and investment information. All these categories are then structured according to several criteria, but the most important aspects are the following:

• We need basic information in the form of a business dashboard (eg sales, margin, profit, turnovers, expenses, budgets vs. realized, etc.)
• For the next level of detail, we need a coherent set of functional and management reports for the operational part of the business
• Business analyzes are needed, especially diagnostic analysis and predictive analysis

3. Who and on what criteria does determine the importance of information for a business?

Until we had a data science, these criteria were established by management based on very practical elements, namely: information to be collected, stored, systematically reported (most often monthly) under the provisions of the law (here we have accounting, tax, employee information, etc.) and information that helps good business management.

With the provisions of the GDPR and the advancement of digitization in all types of companies, the management of data held by a business must pass to the next level. This higher level also comes with much stricter requirements, but also with opportunities for monitoring, systematization, and predictive use of data.

4. What is the perfect choice: raw information, processed information (summarized), interpreted information (research)?

It is said that in management what you do not measure you cannot manage. Well, now more than ever, businesses and managers can benefit from the full contribution of information to business growth. The best information is the correct information (which is 100% accurate) and received on time (even in real-time).

If we make sure that we have 100% correct information, which can be easily viewed from mobile devices, and the update is done at short intervals (1-3 hours), then the clarity in the business increases.

Beyond this process, data analysis is a process of inspection, cleaning, transformation, and modeling of data to discover useful information, to give relevant conclusions, and to support decision-making. When the two processes work together, we have real-time quality information and structured analysis to see trends in industry, sector, company.

5. How does a manager optimize the impact of the information on the business?

Unfortunately, in many companies, the manager does not have this input. Most of the time in companies are made the excellences and ppts that the boss requires, or that are required in meetings. Either the customs of 5 or 10 years ago that “this is how it is done in our country” are perpetuated, or it is reactive, at the request of someone else “from the account” or “from the center”, most of the time the managers limit themselves to this minimal role.

There are few companies active in Romania that have a data culture and that have the systems and mentality necessary to extract maximum benefits from the information they have, involving managers in this process. So, as a personal estimate, I don’t think there are more than 10% of companies that have a strong organizational culture of data and make managers responsible and pro-actively involved in optimizing the impact of the information they have on the business on which coordinates it.