We all are obsessed about data. Attend any industry meeting and the one common discussion topic heard among distributors is, “How are you doing with your data analytics?”
We measure our success as business leaders based on how our numbers come in at the end of the quarter or end of the year. But more and more, owners and leaders are using data to make critical decisions. Purchasing, market-entry and resource-allocation decisions are being made after careful analysis of data that distributors (and manufacturers) have access to. This does not diminish the reliance on our “gut-feeling” that many successful leaders use in making decisions. Many of us have been very successful listening to our gut feeling cultivated from a lifetime of lessons we‘ve learned from making those successful and not-so-successful decisions.